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Title: Works, V2
Author: Lucian of Samosata
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6585]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 29, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS, V2 ***
Produced by Robert Nield, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE WORKS OF LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA
Complete with exceptions specified in the preface
TRANSLATED BY
H. W. FOWLER AND F. G. FOWLER
IN FOUR VOLUMES
What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren
domestic soil? except indeed planting thought of your own, which the
fewest are privileged to do.--_Sartor Resartus_.
At each flaw, be this your first thought: the author doubtless said
something quite different, and much more to the point. And then you may
hiss _me_ off, if you will.--LUCIAN, _Nigrinus_, 9.
(LUCIAN) The last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit.--_Lord
Macaulay_.
VOLUME II
CONTENTS OF VOL. II
THE DEPENDENT SCHOLAR
APOLOGY FOR 'THE DEPENDENT SCHOLAR'
A SLIP OF THE TONGUE IN SALUTATION
HERMOTIMUS, OR THE RIVAL PHILOSOPHIES
HERODOTUS AND AETION
ZEUXIS AND ANTIOCHUS
HARMONIDES
THE SCYTHIAN
THE WAY TO WRITE HISTORY
THE TRUE HISTORY
THE TYRANNICIDE
THE DISINHERITED
PHALARIS, I
PHALARIS, II
ALEXANDER THE ORACLE-MONGER
OF PANTOMIME
LEXIPHANES
THE DEPENDENT SCHOLAR
The dependent scholar! The great man's licensed friend!--if friend, not
slave, is to be the word. Believe me, Timocles, amid the humiliation and
drudgery of his lot, I know not where to turn for a beginning. Many, if
not most, of his hardships are familiar to me; not, heaven knows, from
personal experience, for I have never been reduced to such extremity, and
pray that I never may be; but from the lips of numerous victims; from the
bitter outcries of those who were yet in the snare, and the complacent
recollections of others who, like escaped prisoners, found a pleasure in
detailing all that they had been through. The evidence of the latter was
particularly valuable. Mystics, as it were, of the highest grade,
Dependency had no secrets for them. Accordingly, it was with keen
interest that I listened to their stories of miraculous deliverance from
moral shipwreck. They reminded me of the mariners who, duly cropped,
gather at the doors of a temple, with their tale of stormy seas and
monster waves and promontories, castings out of cargoes, snappings of
masts, shatterings of rudders; ending with the appearance of those twin
brethren [Footnote: The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, who were supposed to
appear to sailors in distress.] so indispensable to nautical story, or of
some other _deus ex machina_, who, seated at the masthead or
standing at the helm, guides the vessel to some sandy shore, there to
break up at her leisure--not before her crew (so benevolent is the God!)
have effected a safe landing. The mariner, however, is liberal in
embellishment, being prompted thereto by the exigencies of his situation;
for by his appearance as a favourite of heaven, not merely a victim of
fortune, the number of the charitable is increased. It is otherwise with
those whose narrative is of domestic storms, of billows rising mountain
high (if so I may phrase it) within four walls. They tell us of the
seductive calm that first lured them on to those waters, of the
sufferings they endured throughout the voyage, the thirst, the
sea-sickness, the briny drenchings; and how at last their luckless craft
went to pieces upon some hidden reef or at the foot of some steep crag,
leaving them to swim for it, and to land naked and utterly destitute. All
this they tell us: but I have ever suspected them of having convenient
lapses of memory, and omitting the worst part for very shame. For myself,
I shall have no such scruple. All that I have heard, or can reasonably
infer, of the evils of dependence, I shall place before you. For either,
friend, my penetration is at fault, or you have long had a hankering for
this profession.
Yes, I have seen it from the first, whenever the conversation has fallen
on this subject of salaried intellects. 'Happy men!' some enthusiast has
cried. 'The _elite_ of Rome are their friends. They dine
sumptuously, and call for no reckoning. They are lodged splendidly, and
travel comfortably--nay, luxuriously--with cushions at their backs, and
as often as not a fine pair of creams in front of them. And, as if this
were not enough, the friendship they enjoy and the handsome treatment
they receive is made good to them with a substantial salary. They sow
not, they plough not; yet all things grow for their use.' How I have seen
you prick up your ears at such words as these! How wide your mouth has
opened to the bait!
Now I will have a clear conscience in this matter. I will not be told
hereafter that I saw you swallowing this palpable bait, and never stirred
a finger to snatch it from you, and show you the hook while there was yet
time; that I watched you nibbling, saw the hook well in and the fish
hauled up, and then stood by shedding useless tears. A grave charge,
indeed, were I to leave it in your power to bring it; such neglect would
admit of no palliation. You shall therefore hear the whole truth. Now, in
leisurely fashion, from without, not hereafter from within, shall you
examine this weel from which no fish escapes. You shall take in hand this
hook of subtle barb. You shall try the prongs of this eel-spear against
your inflated cheek; and if you decide that they are not sharp, that they
would be easily evaded, that a wound from them would be no great matter,
that they are deficient in power and grasp--then write me among those who
have cowardice to thank for their empty bellies; and for yourself, take
heart of grace, and swoop upon your prey, and cormorant-wise, if you
will, swallow all at a gulp.
But however much the present treatise is indebted to you for its
existence, its application is not confined to you who are philosophers,
whose ambition it is to form your conduct upon serious principles; it
extends to the teachers of literature, of rhetoric, of music,--to all, in
short, whose intellectual attainments can command a maintenance and a
wage. And where the life, from beginning to end, is one and the same for
all, the philosopher (I need not say), so far from being a privileged
person, has but the additional ignominy of being levelled with the rest,
and treated by his paymaster with as scant ceremony as the rest. In
conclusion, whatever disclosures I may be led to make, the blame must
fall in the first instance on the aggressors, and in the second instance
on those who suffer the aggression. For me, unless truth and candour be
crimes, I am blameless.
As to the vulgar rabble of trainers and toadies, illiterate, mean-souled
creatures, born to obscurity, should we attempt to dissuade _them_
from such pursuits, our labour would be wasted. Nor can we fairly blame
them, for putting up any affront, rather than part with their employers.
The life suits them; they are in their element. And what other channel is
there, into which their energies could be directed? Take away this, their
sole vocation, and they are idle cumberers of the earth. They have
nothing, then, to complain of; nor are their employers unreasonable in
turning these humble vessels to the use for which they were designed.
They come into a house prepared for such treatment from the first; it is
their profession to endure and suffer wrong.
But the case of educated men, such as I have mentioned above, is another
matter; it calls for our indignation, and for our utmost endeavours to
restore them to liberty. I think it will not be amiss, if I first examine
into the provocations under which they turn to a life of dependence. By
showing how trivial, how inadequate these provocations are, I shall
forestall the main argument used by the defenders of voluntary servitude.
Most of them are content to cloak their desertion under the names of
Poverty and Necessity. It is enough, they think, to plead in extenuation,
that they sought to flee from this greatest of human ills, Poverty.
Theognis comes pat to their purpose. His
Poverty, soul-subduing Poverty,
is in continual requisition, together with other fearful utterances of
our most degenerate poets to the same effect. Now if I could see that
they really found an escape from poverty in the lives they lead, I would
not be too nice on the point of absolute freedom. But when we find them
(to use the expression of a famous orator) 'faring like men that are
sick,' what conclusion is then left to us to draw? What but this, that
here again they have been misled, the very evil which they sold their
liberty to escape remaining as it was? Poverty unending is their lot.
From the bare pittance they receive nothing can be set apart. Suppose it
paid, and paid in full: the whole sum is swallowed up to the last
farthing, before their necessities are supplied. I would advise them to
think upon better expedients; not such as are merely the protectors and
accomplices of Poverty, but such as will make an end of her altogether.
What say you, Theognis? Might this be a case for,
Steep plunge from crags into the teeming deep?
For when a pauper, a needy hireling, persuades himself that by being what
he is he has escaped poverty, one cannot avoid the conclusion that he
labours under some mistake.
Others tell a different tale. For them, mere poverty would have had no
terrors, had they been able, like other men, to earn their bread by their
labours. But, stricken as they were by age or infirmity, they turned to
this as the easiest way of making a living. Now let us consider whether
they are right. This 'easy' way may be found to involve much labour
before it yields any return; more labour perhaps than any other. To find
money ready to one's hand, without toil or trouble on one's own part,
would indeed be a dream of happiness. But the facts are otherwise. The
toils and troubles of their situation are such as no words can adequately
describe. Health, as it turns out, is nowhere more essential than in this
vocation, in which a thousand daily labours combine to grind the victim
down, and reduce him to utter exhaustion. These I shall describe in due
course, when I come to speak of their other grievances. For the present
let it suffice to have shown that this excuse for the sale of one's
liberty is as untenable as the former.
And now for the true reason, which you will never hear from their lips.
Voluptuousness and a whole pack of desires are what induce them to force
their way into great houses. The dazzling spectacle of abundant gold and
silver, the joys of high feeding and luxurious living, the immediate
prospect of wallowing in riches, with no man to say them nay,--these are
the temptations that lure them on, and make slaves of free men; not lack
of the necessaries of life, as they pretend, but lust of its
superfluities, greed of its costly refinements. And their employers, like
finished coquettes, exercise their rigours upon these hapless slaves of
love, and keep them for ever dangling in amorous attendance; but for
fruition, no! never so much as a kiss may they snatch. To grant that
would be to give the lover his release, a conclusion against which they
are jealously on their guard. But upon hopes he is abundantly fed.
Despair might else cure his ardent passion, and the lover be lover no
more. So there are smiles for him, and promises; always something shall
be done, some favour shall be granted, a handsome provision shall be made
for him,--some day. Meanwhile, old age steals upon the pair; the
superannuated lover ceases from desire, and his mistress has nothing left
to give. Life has gone by, and all they have to show for it is _hope_.
Well now, that a man for the sake of pleasure should put up with every
hardship is perhaps no great matter. Devoted to this one object, he can
think of nothing, but how to procure it. Let that pass. Though it seems
but a scurvy bargain, a bargain for a slave; to sell one's liberty for
pleasures far less pleasant than liberty itself. Still, as I say, let
that pass, provided the price is paid. But to endure unlimited pain,
merely in the hope that pleasure may come of it, this surely is carrying
folly to the height of absurdity. And men do it with their eyes open. The
hardships, they know, are certain, unmistakable, inevitable. As to the
pleasure, that vague, hypothetic pleasure, they have never had it in all
these years, and in all reasonable probability they never will. The
comrades of Odysseus forgot all else in the Lotus: but it was while they
were tasting its sweets. They esteemed lightly of Honour: but it was in
the immediate presence of Pleasure. In men so occupied, such forgetfulness
was not wholly unnatural. But to dwell a prisoner, with Famine for
company, to watch one's neighbour fattening on the Lotus, and keeping it
all to himself, and to forget Honour and Virtue in the bare prospect of a
possible mouthful,--by Heaven, it is too absurd, and calls in good truth
for Homeric scourgings.
Such, as nearly as I can describe them, are men's motives for taking
service with the rich, for handing themselves over bodily, to be used as
their employers think fit. There is one class, however, of which I ought
perhaps to make mention--those whose vanity is gratified by the mere fact
of being seen in the company of well-born and well-dressed men. For there
are those who consider this a distinguished privilege; though for my own
part I would not give a fig to enjoy and to be seen enjoying the company
of the King of Persia, if I was to get nothing by it.
And now, since we understand what it is that these men would be at, let
us mentally review their whole career;--the difficulties that beset the
applicant before he gains acceptance; his condition when he is duly
installed in his office; and the closing scene of his life's drama. You
may perhaps suppose that his situation, whatever its drawbacks, is at
least attainable without much trouble; that you have but to will it, and
the thing is done in a trice. Far from it. Much tramping about is in
store for you, much kicking of heels. You will rise early, and stand long
before your patron's closed door; you will be jostled; you will hear
occasional comments on your impudence. You will be exposed to the vile
gabble of a Syrian porter, and to the extortions of a Libyan nomenclator,
whose memory must be fee'd, if he is not to forget your name. You must
dress beyond your means, or you will be a discredit to your patron; and
select his favourite colours, or you will be out of harmony with your
surroundings. Finally, you will be indefatigable in following his steps,
or rather in preceding them, for you will be thrust forward by his
slaves, to swell his triumphal progress. And for days together you will
not be favoured with a glance.
But one day the best befalls you. You catch his eye; he beckons you to
him, and puts a random question. In that supreme moment what cold sweats,
what palpitations, what untimely tremors are yours! and what mirth is
theirs who witness your confusion! 'Who was the king of the Achaeans?' is
the question: and your answer, as likely as not, 'A thousand sail.' With
the charitable this passes for bashfulness; but to the impudent you are a
craven, and to the ill-natured a yokel. This first experience teaches you
that the condescensions of the great are not unattended with danger; and
as you depart you pronounce upon yourself a sentence of utter despair.
Thereafter,
many a sleepless night,
Many a day of strife shall be thy lot--
not for the sake of Helen, not for the towers of Troy, but for the
sevenpence halfpenny of your desire. At length some heaven-sent protector
gives you an introduction: the scholar is brought up for examination. For
the great man, who has but to receive your flatteries and compliments,
this is an agreeable pastime: for you, it is a life-and-death struggle;
all is hazarded on the one throw. For it will of course occur to you,
that if you are rejected at the first trial, you will never pass current
with any one else. A thousand different feelings now distract you. You
are jealous of your rivals (for we will assume that there is competition
for the post); you are dissatisfied with your own replies; you hope; you
fear; you cannot remove your eye from the countenance of your judge. Does
he pooh-pooh your efforts? You are a lost man. Was that a smile? You
rejoice, and hope rises high. It is only to be expected, that many of the
company are your enemies, and others your rivals, and each has his secret
shaft to let fly at you from his lurking-place. What a picture! The
venerable grey-beard being put through his paces. Is he any use? Some say
yes, others no. Time is taken for consideration. Your antecedents are
industriously overhauled. Some envious compatriot, some neighbour with a
trivial grievance, is asked his opinion; he has but to drop a word of
'loose morality,' and your business is done; 'the man speaks God's
truth!' Every one else may testify to your character: their evidence
proves nothing; they are suspected; they are venal. The fact is, you must
gain every point; there must be no hitch anywhere. That is your only
chance of success.
And now, take it that you _have_ succeeded--beyond all expectation.
Your words have found favour with the great man. Those friends, by whose
judgement in such matters he sets most store, have made no attempt to
alter his decision. His wife approves his choice; the steward and the
major-domo have neither of them anything against you. No aspersions have
been cast on your character; all is propitious, every omen is in your
favour. Hail, mighty conqueror, wreathed in the Olympian garland! Babylon
is yours, Sardis falls before you. The horn of plenty is within your
grasp; pigeons shall yield you milk.
Now, if your crown is to be of anything better than leaves, there must be
some solid benefits to compensate you for the labours you have undergone.
A considerable salary will be placed at your disposal, and you will draw
upon it without ceremony, whenever you have occasion. You will be a
privileged person in every respect. As for toils, and muddy tramps, and
wakeful nights, the time for those have gone by. Your prayers have been
heard: you will take your ease, and sleep your fill. You will do the work
you were engaged to do, and not a stroke besides. This, indeed, is what
you have a right to expect. There would be no great hardship in bowing
one's neck to a yoke so light, so easy--and so superbly gilded. But alas,
Timocles, many, nay all of these requirements are unsatisfied. Your
office, now that you have got it, is attended with a thousand details
insufferable to all but slaves. Let me rehearse them to you; you shall
judge for yourself whether any man with the slightest pretence to culture
would endure such treatment.
Let me begin with your first invitation to dinner, which may reasonably
be expected to follow, as an earnest of the patronage to come. It is
brought to you by a most communicative slave, whose goodwill it must be
your first care to secure. Five shillings is the least you can slip into
his palm, if you would do the thing properly. He has scruples. 'Really,
sir--couldn't think of it; no, indeed, sir.' But he is prevailed upon at
last, and goes off, grinning from ear to ear. You then look out your best
clothes, have your bath, make yourself as presentable as possible, and
arrive--in fear and trembling lest you should be the first, which would
wear an awkward air, just as it savours of ostentation to arrive last.
Accordingly you contrive to hit on the right moment, are received with
every attention, and shown to your place, a little above the host,
separated from him only by a couple of his intimates. And now you feel as
if you were in heaven. You are all admiration; everything you see
done throws you into ecstasies. It is all so new and strange! The waiters
stare at you, the company watch your movements. Nor is the host without
curiosity. Some of his servants have instructions to observe you
narrowly, lest your glance should fall too often on his wife or children.
The other guests' men perceive your amazement at the novel scene, and
exchange jesting asides. From the fact that you do not know what to make
of your napkin, they conclude that this is your first experience of
dining-out. You perspire with embarrassment; not unnaturally. You are
thirsty, but you dare not ask for wine, lest you should be thought a
tippler. The due connexion between the various dishes which make their
appearance is beyond you: which ought you to take first? which next?
There is nothing for it but to snatch a side glance at your neighbour, do
as he does, and learn to dine in sequence. On the whole, your feelings
are mingled, your spirit perturbed, and stricken with awe. One moment you
are envying your host his gold, his ivory, and all his magnificence; the
next, you are pitying yourself,--that miserable nonentity which calls its
existence life; and then at intervals comes the thought, 'how happy shall
I be, sharing in these splendours, enjoying them as if they were my own!'
For you conceive of your future life as one continual feast; and the
smiling attendance of gracious Ganymedes gives a charming finish to the
picture. That line of Homer keeps coming to your lips: Small blame to
Trojan or to greaved Achaean, if such happiness as this was to be the
reward of their toils and sufferings. Presently healths are drunk. The
host calls for a large beaker, and drinks to 'the Professor,' or whatever
your title is to be. You, in your innocence, do not know that you ought
to say something in reply; you receive the cup in silence, and are set
down as a boor.
Apart from this, your host's pledge has secured you the enmity of many of
his old friends, with some of whom it was already a grievance, that an
acquaintance of a few hours' standing should sit above men who have been
drinking the cup of slavery for years. Tongues are busy with you at once.
Listen to some of them. 'So! We are to give place to new-comers! It
wanted but this. The gates of Rome are open to none but these Greeks. Now
what is their claim to be set over our heads? I suppose they think they
are conferring a favour on us with their wordy stuff?' 'How he did drink,
to be sure!' says another. 'And did you see how he shovelled his food
down, hand over hand? Mannerless starveling! He has never so much as
dreamt of white bread before. 'Twas the same with the capon and pheasant;
much if he left us the bones to pick!' 'My dear sirs' (cries number
three), 'I give him five days at the outside; after which you will see
him at our end of the table, making like moan with ourselves. He is a new
pair of shoes just now, and is treated with all ceremony. Wait till he
has been worn a few times, and the mud has done its work; he will be
flung under the bed, poor wretch, like the rest of us, to be a receptacle
for bugs.' Such are some among the many comments you excite; and, for all
we know, mischief may be brewing at this moment.
Meanwhile, you are the guest of the evening, and the principal theme of
conversation. Your unwonted situation has led you on to drink more than
was advisable. For some time you have been feeling uncomfortable effects
from your host's light, eager wine. To get up before the rest would be
bad manners: to remain is perilous. The drinking is prolonged; subject
upon subject is started, spectacle after spectacle is produced; for your
host is determined that you shall see all he has to show. You suffer the
torments of the damned. You see nothing of what is going forward: some
favourite singer or musician is performing--you hear him not; and while
you force out some complimentary phrase, you are praying that an
earthquake may swallow up all, or that the news of a fire may break up
the party.
Such, my friend, is your first dinner, the best you will ever get. For my
part, give me a dinner of herbs, with liberty to eat when I will and as
much as I will. I shall spare you the recital of the nocturnal woes that
follow your excess. The next morning, you have to come to terms as to the
amount of your salary, and the times of payment. Appearing in answer to
his summons, you find two or three friends with him. He bids you be
seated, and begins to speak. 'You have now seen the sort of way in which
we live--no ostentation, no fuss; everything quite plain and ordinary.
Now you will consider everything here as your own. It would be a strange
thing, indeed, were I to entrust you with the highest responsibility of
all, the moral guidance of myself and my children'--if there are children
to be taught--'and yet hesitate to place the rest at your disposal.
Something, however, must be settled. I know your moderate, independent
spirit. I quite realize that you come to us from no mercenary motive,
that you are influenced only by the regard and uniform respect which will
be assured to you in this house. Still, as I say, something must be
settled. Now, my dear sir, tell me yourself, what you think right;
remembering that there is something to be expected at the great
festivals; for you will not find me remiss in that respect, though I say
nothing definite at present; and these occasions, as you know, come
pretty frequently in the course of the year. This consideration will no
doubt influence you in settling the amount of your salary; and apart from
that, it sits well on men of culture like yourself, to be above the
thought of money.' Your hopes are blasted at the words, and your proud
spirit is tamed. The dream of the millionaire and landed proprietor fades
away, as you gradually catch his parsimonious drift. Yet you smirk
appreciation of the promise. You are to 'consider everything as your
own'; there, surely, is something solid? 'Tis a draught (did you but know
it)
That wets the lips, but leaves the palate dry.
After an interval of embarrassment, you leave the matter to his decision.
He declines the responsibility, and calls for the intervention of one of
the company: let him name a sum, at once worthy of your acceptance, and
not burdensome to his purse, which has so many more urgent calls upon it.
'Sir,' says this officious old gentleman, who has been a toady from his
youth, 'Sir, you are the luckiest man in Rome. Deny it if you can! You
have gained a privilege which many a man has longed for, and is not like
to obtain at Fortune's hands. You have been admitted to enjoy the company
and share the hearth and home of the first citizen of our empire. Used
aright, such a privilege will be more to you than the wealth of a Croesus
or a Midas. Knowing as I do how many there are--persons of high standing
--who would be glad to pay money down, merely for the honour and glory of
the acquaintanceship, of being seen in his company, and ranking as his
friends and intimates,--knowing this, I am at a loss for words in which
to express my sense of your good fortune. You are not only to enjoy this
happiness, but to be paid for enjoying it! Under the circumstances, I
think we shall satisfy your most extravagant expectations, if we say'--
and he names a sum which in itself is of the smallest, quite apart from
all reference to your brilliant hopes. However, there is nothing for it
but to submit with a good grace. It is too late now for escape; you are
in the toils. So you open your mouth for the bit, and are very manageable
from the first. You give your rider no occasion to keep a tight rein, or
to use the spur; and at last by imperceptible degrees you are quite
broken in to him.
The outside world from that time watches you with envy. You dwell within
his courts; you have free access; you are become a person of consequence.
Yet it is now incomprehensible to you how they can suppose you to be
happy. At the same time, you are not without a certain exultation: you
cheat yourself from day to day with the thought that there are better
things to come. Quite the contrary turns out to be the case. Your
prospects, like the proverbial sacrifice of Mandrobulus, dwindle and
contract from day to day. Gradually you get some faint glimmerings of the
truth. It begins to dawn upon you at last, that those golden hopes were
neither more nor less than gilded bubbles: the vexations, on the other
hand, are realities; solid, abiding, uncompromising realities. 'And what
are these vexations?' you will perhaps exclaim; 'I see nothing so
vexatious about the matter; I know not what are the hardships and the
drudgery alluded to.' Then listen. And do not confine yourself to the
article of drudgery, but keep a sharp look-out for ignominy, for
degradation, for everything, in short, that is unworthy of a free man.
Let me remind you then, to begin with, that you are no longer free-born,
no longer a man of family. Birth, freedom, ancestry, all these you will
leave on the other side of the door, when you enter upon the fulfilment
of your servile contract; for Freedom will never bear you company in that
ignoble station. You are a slave, wince as you may at the word; and, be
assured, a slave of many masters; a downward-looking drudge, from morning
till night
serving for sorry wage.
Then again, you are a backward pupil: Servitude was not the nurse of your
childhood; you are getting on in years when she takes you in hand;
accordingly, you will do her little credit, and give little satisfaction
to your lord. Recollections of Freedom will exercise their demoralizing
influence upon you, causing you to jib at times, and you will make
villanous work of your new profession. Or will your aspirations after
Freedom be satisfied, perhaps, with the thought, that you are no son of a
Pyrrhias or a Zopyrion, no Bithynian, to be knocked down under the hammer
of a bawling auctioneer? My dear sir, when pay-day comes round each
month, and you mingle in the herd of Pyrrhiases and Zopyrions, and hold
out your hand for the wage that is due to you, what is that but a sale?
No need of an auctioneer, for the man who can cry his own wares, and
hawks his liberty about from day to day. Wretch! (one is prompted to
exclaim, and particularly when the culprit is a professed philosopher)
Wretch! Were you captured and sold by a pirate or a brigand, you would
bewail your lot, and think that Fortune had dealt hardly with you. Were a
man to lay violent hands on you, and claim a master's rights in you, loud
and bitter would be your outcry: 'By heaven and earth, 'tis monstrous! I
appeal to the laws!' And now, at an age at which a born slave may begin
to look towards Freedom, _now_ for a few pence do you sell yourself,
your virtue and wisdom, in one parcel? And could Plato's noble words,
could all that Chrysippus and Aristotle have said, of the blessings of
freedom and the curse of slavery, raise no compunction in you? Do you
count it no shame to be pitted against toadies and vulgar parasites? no
shame to sit at the noisy banquets of a promiscuous, and for the most
part a disreputable company, a Greek among Romans, wearing the foreign
garb of philosophy, and stammering their tongue with a foreign accent?
How fulsome are your flatteries on these occasions! how indecent your
tipplings! And next morning the bell rings, and up you must get, losing
the best of your sleep, to trudge up and down with yesterday's mud still
on your shoes. Were lupines and wild herbs so scarce with you? had the
springs ceased to give their wonted supply, that you were brought to such
a pass? No, the cause of your captivity is too clear. Not water, not
lupines were the object of your desire, but dainty viands and fragrant
wines; and your sin has found you out: you are hooked like a pike by your
greedy jaws. We have not far to look for the reward of gluttony. Like a
monkey with a collar about its neck, you are kept to make amusement for
the company; fancying yourself supremely happy, because you are unstinted
in the matter of dried figs. As to freedom and generosity, they are fled,
with the memories of Greece, and have left no trace behind them. And
would that that were all, the disgrace of falling from freedom to
servitude! Would that your employments were not those of a very menial!
Consider: are your duties any lighter than those of a Dromo or a Tibius?
As to the studies in which your employer professed an interest when he
engaged you, they are nothing to him. Shall an ass affect the lyre?
Remove from these men's minds the gold and the silver, with the cares
that these involve, and what remains? Pride, luxury, sensuality,
insolence, wantonness, ignorance. Consuming must be their desire, doubt
it not, for the wisdom of Homer, the eloquence of Demosthenes, the
sublimity of Plato!
No, your employer has no need of your services in this direction. On the
other hand, you have a long beard and a venerable countenance; the
Grecian cloak hangs admirably upon your shoulders, and you are known to
be a professor of rhetoric, or literature, or philosophy; it will not be
amiss, he thinks, to have such pursuits represented in the numerous
retinue that marches before him. It will give him an air of Grecian
culture, of liberal curiosity in fact. Friend, friend! your stock-in-
trade would seem to be not words of wisdom, but a cloak and a beard. If
you would do your duty, therefore, be always well in evidence; begin your
unfailing attendance from the early hours of the morning, and never quit
his side. Now and again he places a hand upon your shoulder, and mutters
some nonsense for the benefit of the passers-by, who are to understand
that though he walk abroad the Muses are not forgotten, that in all his
comings and goings he can find elegant employment for his mind.
Breathless and perspiring, you trot, a pitiable spectacle, at the
litter's side; or if he walks--you know what Rome is--, up hill and down
dale after him you tramp. While he is paying a call on a friend, you are
left outside, where, for lack of a seat, you are fain to take out your
book and read standing.
Night finds you hungry and thirsty. You snatch an apology for a bath; and
it is midnight or near it before you get to dinner. You are no longer an
honoured guest; no longer do you engage the attention of the company. You
have retired to make room for some newer capture. Thrust into the most
obscure corner, you sit watching the progress of dinner, gnawing in
canine sort any bones that come down to you and regaling yourself with
hungry zest on such tough mallow-leaves--the wrappers of daintier fare--
as may escape the vigilance of those who sit above you. No slight is
wanting. You have not so much as an egg to call your own; for there is no
reason why you should expect to be treated in the same way as a stranger;
that would be absurd. The birds that fall to your lot are not like other
birds. Your neighbour gets some plump, luscious affair; you, a poor half-
chicken, or lean pigeon, an insult, a positive outrage in poultry. As
often as not, an extra guest appears unexpectedly, and the waiter solves
the difficulty by removing your share (with the whispered consolation
that you are 'one of the family'), and placing it before the new-comer.
When the joint, be it pork or venison, is brought in to be carved, let us
hope that you stand well with the carver, or you will receive a
Promethean helping of 'bones wrapped up in fat.' And the way in which a
dish is whisked past you, after remaining with your neighbour till he can
eat no more!--what free man would endure it, though he were as innocent
of gall as any stag? And I have said nothing yet of the wine. While the
other guests are drinking of some rare old vintage, you have vile thick
stuff, whose colour you must industriously conceal with the help of a
gold or silver cup, lest it should betray the estimation in which the
drinker is held. It would be something if you could get enough even of
this. Alas! you may call and call: the waiter is
as one that marketh not.
Many are your grievances; nay, all is one huge grievance. And the climax
is reached, when you find yourself eclipsed by some minion, some dancing-
master, some vile Alexandrian patterer of Ionic lays. How should you hope
to rank with the minister of Love's pleasures, with the stealthy conveyer
of billets-doux? You cower shamefaced in your corner, and bewail your
hard lot, as well you may; cursing your luck that you have never a
smattering of such graceful accomplishments yourself. I believe you wish
that _you_ could turn love-songs, or sing other men's with a good
grace; perceiving as you do what a thing it is to be in request. Nay, you
could find it in you to play the wizard's, the fortune-teller's part; to
deal in thrones and in millions of money. For these, too, you observe,
make their way in the world, and are high in favour. Gladly would you
enter on any one of these vocations, rather than be a useless castaway.
Alas, even these are beyond you; you lack plausibility. It remains for
you to give place to others; to endure neglect, and keep your complaints
to yourself.
Nay, more. Should some slave whisper that you alone withheld your praise,
when his mistress's favourite danced or played, the neglect may cost you
dear. Then let your dry throat be as busy as any thirsty frog's. See to
it, that your voice is heard leading the chorus of applause; and time
after time, when all else are silent, throw in some studied servile
compliment. The situation is not without humour. Hungry as you are, ay,
and thirsty into the bargain, you must anoint yourself with oil of
gladness, and crown your head with garlands. It reminds one of the
offerings made by recent mourners at a tomb. The tomb gets the ointment
and the garlands, while the mourners drink and enjoy the feast.
If your patron is of a jealous disposition, and has a young wife or
handsome children, and you are not wholly without personal attractions,
then beware! you are on dangerous ground. Many are the ears of a king,
and many the eyes, that see not the truth only, but ever something over
and above the truth, lest they should seem to fail of their office.
Imagine yourself, therefore, at a Persian banquet. Keep your eyes
downwards, lest a eunuch should catch them resting on one of the
concubines. For see, there stands another with his bow ever on the
stretch: one glance at the forbidden object as you raise your cup, and
his arrow is through your jaw before you can put it down.
And now dinner is over; you retire, and snatch a little sleep. But at
cock-crow you are aroused. 'Wretch! Worm that I am!' you exclaim. 'To
sacrifice the pursuits, the society of former days, the placid life
wherein sleep was measured by inclination, and my comings and goings were
unfettered, and all to precipitate myself bodily into this hideous gulf!
And why? What, in God's name, is my glorious recompense? Was there no
other way? Could I not have provided for myself better than this, and
preserved liberty and free-will into the bargain? Alas! the lion is fast
bound in the net. I am haled hither and thither. Pitiable is my lot,
where no honour is to be won, no favour to be hoped for. Untaught,
unpractised in the arts of flattery, I am pitted against professionals. I
am no choice spirit, no jolly companion; to raise a laugh is beyond me.
My presence (well do I know it) is a vexation to my patron, and then most
when he is in his most gracious mood. He finds me sullen; and how to
attune myself to him I know not. If I wear a grim face, I am a sour
fellow, scarcely to be endured. If I assume my most cheerful expression,
my smiles arouse his contempt and disgust. As well attempt to act a comic
part in the mask of tragedy! And what is the end of it all? My present
life has been another's: do I look to have a new life which shall be my
own?'
Your soliloquy is interrupted by the bell. The old routine awaits you:
you must trudge, and you must stand; and first anoint your limbs, if you
would hold out to the end. Dinner will be the same as ever, and go on as
late as ever. The change from all your former habits, the wakeful night,
the violent exercise, the exhaustion, are slowly undermining your health
at this moment, and preparing you for consumption or colic, for asthma or
the delights of gout. However, you hold out in spite of all, though many
a time your right place would be in bed. But that would never do: that
looks like shamming, like shirking your work. The result is that you grow
as pallid as a man at the point of death.
So much for your city life. And now for an excursion into the country.
I will content myself with a single detail. As likely as not it is a wet
day. Your turn for the carriage (as might be expected) comes last. You
wait and wait, till at last its return is out of the question, and you
are squeezed into some vehicle with the cook, or with my lady's _friseur_,
without even a proper allowance of straw. I shall make no scruple of
relating to you an experience of Thesmopolis the Stoic, which I had from
his own mouth; a most amusing incident, and just the sort of thing one
might expect to find happening again. He was in the service of a certain
wealthy and luxurious lady of quality, whom on one occasion he had to
accompany on a journey from Rome. The fun began at once. The philosopher
received as his travelling companion a beardless exquisite of the
pitch-plastering persuasion, by whom, you may be certain, my lady set
great store; his name, she informed the philosopher, was 'Robinetta.' Is
not this a promising start?--the grave and reverend Thesmopolis, with his
hoary beard (you know what a long, venerable affair it is), side by side
with this rouged and painted ogler, whose drooping neck and plucked
throat suggested the vulture rather than the robin! 'Twas all that
Thesmopolis could do to persuade him not to wear his hair-net; and as it
was he had a sad journey of it, with the fellow singing and whistling all
the time--I daresay he would have danced there and then, if Thesmopolis
had not prevented him. But there was more to come, as you will see.
'Thesmopolis,' cries my lady, calling him to her, 'I have a great favour
to ask of you; now please don't say no, and don't wait to be asked twice,
there's a good creature.' Of course, he said he would do anything she
wished. 'I only ask you, because I know you are to be trusted; you are so
good-natured and affectionate! I want you to take my little dog Myrrhina
in with you, and see that she wants for nothing. Poor little lady! she is
soon to become a mother. These hateful, inattentive servants take no
notice of _me_ when we are travelling, much less of her. You will be doing
me a great kindness, I assure you, in taking charge of her; I am so fond
of the sweet little pet!' She prayed and almost wept; and Thesmopolis
promised. Imagine the ludicrous picture. The little beast peeping out from
beneath the philosophic cloak; within licking distance of that beard,
which perhaps still held traces of the thick soup of yesterday; yapping
away with its shrill pipe of a voice, as Maltese terriers will; and no
doubt taking other liberties, which Thesmopolis did not think worth
mentioning. That night at dinner, the exquisite, his fellow traveller,
after cracking a passable joke here and there at the expense of the other
guests, came to Thesmopolis. 'Of him,' he remarked, 'I have only this to
say, that our Stoic has turned Cynic.' According to what I heard, the
little animal actually littered in his mantle!
Such are the caprices, nay, the insults, let me rather say, with which
the patron gradually breaks the spirit of his dependants. I know myself
of an orator, a very free speaker, who was actually ordered to stand up
and deliver a speech at table; and a masterly speech it was, trenchant
and terse. He received the congratulations of the company on being timed
by a _wine_--instead of a _water_-clock; and this affront, it is said, he
was content to put up, for the consideration of 8 pounds. But what of
that? Wait till you get a patron who has poetical or historical
tendencies, and spouts passages of his own works all through dinner: you
must praise, you must flatter, you must devise original compliments for
him,--or die in the attempt. Then there are the beaux, the Adonises and
Hyacinths, as you must be careful to call them, undeterred by the
eighteen inches or so of nose that some of them carry on their faces. Do
your praises halt? 'Tis envy, 'tis treason! Away with you, Philoxenus
that you are, to Syracusan quarries!--Let them be orators, let them be
philosophers, if they will: what matter for a solecism here and there?
Find Attic elegance, find honey of Hymettus in every word; and pronounce
it law henceforth, to speak as they speak.
If we had only men to deal with, it would be something: but there are the
women too. For among the objects of feminine ambition is this, of having
a scholar or two in their pay, to dance attendance at the litter's side;
it adds one more to the list of their adornments, if they can get the
reputation of culture and philosophy, of turning a song which will bear
comparison with Sappho's. So they too keep their philosopher, their
orator, or their _litterateur_; and give him audience--when, think
you? Why, at the toilet, by all that is ridiculous, among the rouge-pots
and hair-brushes; or else at the dinner-table. They have no leisure at
other times. As it is, the philosopher is often interrupted by the
entrance of a maid with a billet-doux. Virtue has then to bide her time;
for the audience will not be resumed till the gallant has his answer.
At rare intervals, at the Saturnalia or the Feast of Minerva, you will be
presented with a sorry cloak, or a worn-out tunic; and a world of
ceremony will go to the presentation. The first who gets wind of the
great man's intention flies to you with the news of what is in store
for you; and the bringer of glad tidings does not go away empty-handed. The
next morning a dozen of them arrive, conveying the present, each with his
tale of how he spoke up for you, or the hints he threw out, or how he was
entrusted with the choice, and chose the best. Not a man of them but
departs with your money in his pocket, grumbling that it is no more.
As to that salary, it will be paid to you sixpence at a time, and there
will be black looks when you ask for it. Still, you must get it somehow.
Ply your patron therefore with flatteries and entreaties, and pay due
observance to his steward, and let it be the kind of observance that
stewards like best; nor must you forget your kind introducer. You do get
something at last; but it all goes to pay the tailor, the doctor, or the
shoemaker, and you are left the proud possessor of nothing at all.
Meanwhile, jealousy is rife, and some slander is perhaps working its
stealthy way to ears which are predisposed to hear anything to your
discredit. For your employer perceives that by this time incessant
fatigues have worn you out; you are crippled, you are good for nothing
more, and gout is coming on. All the profit that was to be had of you, he
has effectually sucked out. Your prime has gone by, your bodily vigour is
exhausted, you are a tattered remnant. He begins to look about for a
convenient dunghill whereon to deposit you, and for an able-bodied
substitute to do your work. You have attempted the honour of one of his
minions: you have been trying to corrupt his wife's maid, venerable
sinner that you are!--any accusation will serve. You are gagged and
turned out neck and crop into the darkness. Away you go, helpless and
destitute, with gout for the cheering companion of your old age. Whatever
you once knew, you have unlearnt in all these years: on the other hand,
you have developed a paunch like a balloon; a monster insatiable,
inexorable, which has acquired a habit of asking for more, and likes not
at all the unlearning process. It is not to be supposed that any one else
will give you employment, at your age; you are like an old horse, whose
very hide has deteriorated in value. Not to mention that the worst
interpretation will be put upon your late dismissal; you will be credited
with adultery, or poisoning, or something of that kind. Your accuser, you
see, is convincing even in silence; whereas you--you are a loose-
principled, unscrupulous _Greek_. That is the character we Greeks
bear; and it serves us right; I see excellent grounds for the opinion
they have of us. Greek after Greek who enters their service sets up (in
default of any other practical knowledge) for wizard or poisoner, and
deals in love-charms and evil spells; and these are they who talk of
culture, who wear grey beards and philosophic cloaks! When these, who are
accounted the best of us, stand thus exposed, when men observe their
interested servility, their gross flatteries at table and elsewhere, it
is not to be wondered at that we have all fallen under suspicion. Those
whom they have cast off, they hate, and seek to make an end of them
altogether; arguing, naturally enough, that men who know their secrets,
and have seen them in all their nakedness, may divulge many a foible
which will not bear the light; and the thought is torment to them. The
fact is, that these great men are for all the world like handsomely bound
books. Outside are the gilt edges and the purple cover: and within? a
Thyestes feasts upon his own children; an Oedipus commits incest with his
mother; a Tereus woos two sisters at once. Such are these human books:
their brilliancy attracts all eyes, but between the purple covers lurks
many a horrid tale. Turn over the pages of any one of them, and you find
a drama worthy the pen of Sophocles or Euripides: close the volume--all
is gilt edge and exquisite tooling. Well may they hate the confidants of
such crimes, and plot their destruction! What if the outcast should take
to rehearsing in public the tragedy that he has got by heart?
I am minded to give you, after the manner of Cebes, a life-picture of
Dependence; with this before your eyes, you may judge for yourself,
whether it is the life for you. I would gladly call in the aid of an
Apelles or a Parrhasius, an Aetion or a Euphranor, but no such perfect
painters are to be found in these days; I must sketch you the picture in
outline as best I can. I begin then with tall golden gates, not set in
the plain, but high upon a hill. Long and steep and slippery is the
ascent; and many a time when a man looks to reach the top, his foot
slips, and he is plunged headlong. Within the gates sits Wealth, a figure
all of gold (so at least she seems); most fair, most lovely. Her lover
painfully scales the height, and draws near to the door; and that golden
sight fills him with amazement. The beautiful woman in gorgeous raiment
who now takes him by the hand is Hope. As she leads him in, his spirit is
stricken with awe. Hope still shows the way; but two others, Despair and
Servitude, now take charge of him, and conduct him to Toil, who grinds
the poor wretch down with labour, and at last hands him over to Age. He
looks sickly now, and all his colour is gone. Last comes Contempt, and
laying violent hands on him drags him into the presence of Despair; it is
now time for Hope to take wing and vanish. Naked, potbellied, pale and
old, he is thrust forth, not by those golden gates by which he entered,
but by some obscure back-passage. One hand covers his nakedness; with the
other he would fain strangle himself. Now let Regret meet him without,
dropping vain tears and heaping misery on misery,--and my picture is
complete.
Examine it narrowly in all its details, and see whether you like the idea
of going in at my golden front door, to be expelled ignominiously at the
back. And whichever way you decide, remember the words of the wise man:
'Blame not Heaven, but your own choice.'
APOLOGY FOR 'THE DEPENDENT SCHOLAR'
DEAR SABINUS,
I have been guessing how you are likely to have expressed yourself upon
reading my essay about dependants. I feel pretty sure you read it all and
had a laugh over it; but it is your running and general comment in words
that I am trying to piece on to it. If I am any good at divination, this
is the sort of thing: _To think that a man can set down such a scathing
indictment of the life, and then forget it all, get hold of the other end
of the stick, and plunge headlong into such manifest conspicuous slavery!
Take Midas, Croesus, golden Pactolus, roll them into one, multiply them,
and could they induce him to relinquish the freedom which he has loved
and consorted with from a child? He is nearly in the clutches of Aeacus,
one foot is on the ferryman's boat, and it is now that he lets himself be
dragged submissively about by a golden collar._ [Footnote: Omitting as
a scholium, with Dindorf and Fritzsche, the words: hoia esti ton
tryphonton plousion ta sphingia kai ta kourallia.] _There is some
slight inconsistency between his life and his treatise; the rivers are
running up-hill; topsy-turvydom prevails; our recantations are new-
fashioned; the first palinodist_ [Footnote: See _Stesichorus_ in
Notes.] _mended words with words for Helen of Troy; but we spoil words
(those words we thought so wise) with deeds._
Such, I imagine, were your inward remarks. And I dare say you will give
me some overt advice to the same effect; well, it will not be ill-timed;
it will illustrate your friendship, and do you credit as a good man and a
philosopher. If I render your part respectably for you, that will do, and
we will pay our homage to the God of words; [Footnote: i.e. Hermes.] if I
fail, you will fill in the deficiency for yourself. There, the stage is
ready; I am to hold my tongue, and submit to any necessary carving and
cauterizing for my good, and you are to plaster me, and have your scalpel
handy, and your iron red-hot. Sabinus takes the word, and thus addresses
me:
_My dear friend, this treatise of yours has quite rightly been earning
you a fine reputation, from its first delivery before the great audience
I had described to me, to its private use by the educated who have
consulted and thumbed it since. For indeed it presents the case
meritoriously; there is study of detail and experience of life in
abundance; your views are the reverse of vague; and above all the book is
practically useful, chiefly but not exclusively to the educated whom it
might save from an unforeseen slavery. However, your mind is changed; the
life you described is now the better; good-bye to freedom; your motto is
that contemptible line:
Give me but gain, I'll turn from free to slave.
Let none hear the lecture from you again, then; see to it that no copy of
it comes under the eyes of any one aware of your present life; ask Hermes
to bring Lethe-water from below, enough to drug your former hearers; else
you will remind us of the Corinthian tale, and your writing, like
Bellerophon's, be your own condemnation. I assure you I see no decent
defence you can make, at least if your detractors have the humour to
commend the independence of the writings while the writer is a slave and
a voluntary beast of burden before their eyes.
They will say with some plausibility: Either the book is some other
good man's work, and you a jackdaw strutting in borrowed, plumes; or, if
it is really yours, you are a second Salaethus; the Crotoniate legislator
made most severe laws against adultery, was much looked up to on the
strength of it, and was shortly after taken in adultery with his
brother's wife. You are an exact reproduction of Salaethus, they will
say; or rather he was not half so bad as you, seeing that he was mastered
by passion, as he pleaded in court, and moreover preferred to leap
into the flames, like a brave man, when the Crotoniates were moved to
compassion and gave him the alternative of exile. The difference between
_your_ precept and practice is infinitely more ridiculous; you draw
a realistic word-picture of that servile life; you pour contempt on the
man who runs into the trap of a rich man's house, where a thousand
degradations, half of them self-inflicted, await him; and then in extreme
old age, when you are on the border between life and death, you take this
miserable servitude upon you and make a sort of circus exhibition of your
chains. The conspicuousness of your position will only make the more
ridiculous that contrast between your book and your life.
But I need not beat my brains for phrases of reprobation; there is one
good enough in a noble tragedy:
Wisdom begins at home; no wisdom, else.
And your censors will find no lack of illustrations against you; some
will compare you to the tragic actor; on the stage he is Agamemnon or
Creon or great Heracles; but off it, stripped of his mask, he is just
Polus or Aristodemus, a hireling liable to be hissed off, or even whipped
on occasion, at the pleasure of the audience. Others will say you have
had the experience of Queen Cleopatra's monkey: the docile creature used
to dance in perfect form and time, and was much admired for the
regularity and decorum of its movements, adapted to the voices and
instruments of a bridal chorus; alas, one day it spied a fig or almond a
little way off on the ground; flutes and measures and steps were all
forgotten, the mask was far off in several pieces, and there was he
chewing his find.
You, they will say, are the author (for 'actor' would understate the
case) who has laid down the laws of noble conduct; and no sooner is the
lump of figs presented than the monkey is revealed; your lips are the
lips of a philosopher, and your heart is quite other; it is no injustice
to say that those sentiments for which you claim admiration have 'wetted
your lips, and left your palate dry.' You have not had to wait long for
retribution; you spoke unadvisedly in scorn of human needs; and, this
little while after, behold you making public renunciation of your
freedom! Surely Nemesis was standing behind your back as you drank in the
flattering tributes to your superiority; did she not smile in her divine
fore-knowledge of the impending change, and mark how you forgot to
propitiate her before you assailed the victims whom fortune's mutability
had reduced to such courses?
Now I want you to imagine a rhetorician writing on the theme that
Aeschines, after his indictment of Timarchus, was himself proved guilty
by eyewitnesses of similar iniquity; would, or would not, the amusement
of the audience be heightened by the fact that he had got Timarchus
punished for offences excused by youth, whereas he was himself an old man
at the time of his own guilt? Why, you are like the quack who offered a
cough-mixture which was to cure instantaneously, and could hardly get the
promise out for coughing._
Yes, Sabinus, and there is plenty more of the same sort for an accuser
like you to urge; the subject is all handles; you can take hold of it
anywhere. I have been looking about for my best line of defence. Had I
better turn craven, face right-about, confess my sin, and have recourse
to the regular plea of Chance, Fate, Necessity? Shall I humbly beseech my
critics to pardon me, remembering that nothing is in a man's own choice--
we are led by some stronger power, one of the three I mentioned, probably,
and are not true agents but guiltless altogether, whatever we say or do?
Or will you tell me this might do well enough for one of the common herd,
but you cannot have _me_ sheltering myself so? _I_ must not brief Homer;
it will not serve me to plead:
No mortal man e'er yet escaped his fate;
nor again,
His thread was spun, then when his mother bare him.
On the other hand, I might avoid that plea as wanting in plausibility,
and say that I did not accept this association under the temptation of
money or any prospects of that kind, but in pure admiration of the
wisdom, strength, and magnanimity of my patron's character, which
inspired the wish to partake his activity. But I fear I should only have
brought on myself the additional imputation of flattery. It would be a
case of 'one nail drives out one nail,' and this time the one left in
would be the bigger; for flattery is the most servile, and consequently
reckoned the worst, of all vices.
Both these pleas, then, being excluded, what is left me but to confess
that I have no sound defence to make? I have indeed one anchor yet
aboard: I may whine over age and ill health, and their attendant poverty,
from which a man will purchase escape at any cost. The situation tempts
me to send an invitation to Euripides's _Medea_: will she come and
recite certain lines of hers on my behalf, kindly making the slight
changes needed?--
Too well I know how monstrous is the deed;
My poverty, but not my will, consents.
And every one knows the place in Theognis, whether I quote it or not,
where he approves of people's flinging themselves to the unplumbed deep
from sky-pointing crags, if one may be quit of poverty that way.
That about exhausts the obvious lines of defence; and none of them is
very promising. But never fear, my friend, I am not going to try any of
them. May never Argos be so hard put to it that Cyllarabis must be sown!
nor ever I be in such straits for a tolerable defence as to be driven
upon these evasions! No, I only ask you to consider the vast difference
between being a hireling in a rich man's house, where one is a slave, and
must put up with all that is described in my book--between that and
entering the public service, doing one's best as an administrator, and
taking the Emperor's pay for it. Go fully into the matter; take the two
things separately and have a good look at them; you will find that they
are two octaves apart, as the musical people say; the two lives are about
as like each other as lead is to silver, bronze to gold, an anemone to a
rose, a monkey to a man; there is pay, and there is subordination, in
each case; but the essence of the two things is utterly different. In one
we have manifest slavery; the new-comers who accept the terms are barely
distinguishable from the human chattels a man has bought or bred; but
persons who have the management of public business, and give their
services to states and nations, are not to have insinuations aimed at
them just because they are paid; that single point of resemblance is not
to level them down to the others. If that is to be the principle, we had
better do away with all such offices at once; governors of whole
provinces, prefects of cities, commanders of legions and armies, will all
fall under the same condemnation; for they are paid. But of course
everything is not to be upset to suit a single case; all who receive pay
are not to be lumped together.
It is all a mistake; I never said that all drawers of salaries lived a
degraded life; I only pitied those domestic slaves who have been caught
by compliments on their culture. My position, you see, is entirely
different; my private relations are as they were before, though in a
public capacity I am now an active part of the great Imperial machine. If
you care to inquire, you will find that my charge is not the least
important in the government of Egypt. I control the cause-list, see that
trials are properly conducted, keep a record of all proceedings and
pleas, exercise censorship over forensic oratory, and edit the Emperor's
rescripts with a view to their official and permanent preservation in the
most lucid, accurate, and genuine form. My salary comes from no private
person, but from the Emperor; and it is considerable, amounting to many
hundreds. In the future too there is before _me_ the brilliant prospect of
attaining in due course to a governorship or other distinguished
employment.
Accordingly I am now going to throw off reserve, come to grips with the
charge against me, and prove my case _a fortiori_. I tell you that nobody
does anything for nothing; you may point to people in high places--as high
as you like; the Emperor himself is paid. I am not referring to the taxes
and tribute which flow in annually from subjects; the chief item in the
Emperor's pay is panegyrics, world-wide fame, and grateful devotion; the
statues, temples, and consecrated ground which their subjects bestow upon
them, what are these but pay for the care and forethought which they apply
to public policy and improvements? To compare small things with great, if
you will begin at the top of the heap and work down through the grains of
which it is composed, you will find that we inferior ones differ from the
superior in point of size, but all are wage-earners together.
If the law I laid down had been that no one should do anything, I might
fairly have been accused of transgressing it; but as my book contains
nothing of the sort, and as goodness consists in doing good, what better
use can you make of yourself than if you join forces with your friends in
the cause of progress, come out into the open, and let men see that you
are loyal and zealous and careful of your trust, not what Homer calls a
vain cumberer of the earth?
But before all, my critics are to remember that in me they will be
criticizing not a wise man (if indeed there is such a person on earth),
but one of the common people, one who has indeed practised rhetoric and
won some little reputation therein, but has never been trained up to the
perfect virtue of the really great. Well, I may surely be forgiven for
that; if any one ever did come up to the ideal of the wise man, it has
not been my fortune to meet him. And I confess further that I should be
disappointed if I found you criticizing my present life; you knew me long
ago when I was making a handsome income out of the public profession of
rhetoric; for on that Atlantic tour of yours which included Gaul, you
found me numbered among those teachers who could command high fees. Now,
my friend, you have my defence; I am exceedingly busy, but could not be
indifferent to securing _your_ vote of acquittal; as for others, let
them all denounce me with one voice if they will; on them I shall waste
no more words than, What cares Hippoclides?
A SLIP OF THE TONGUE IN SALUTATION
[Footnote: This piece, which even in the Greek fails to convince us that
Asclepius heard the prayer with which it concludes, is still flatter in
English, because we have no words of salutation which correspond at once
in etymological meaning and in conventional usage to the Greek. The
English reader who cares to understand a piece so little worth his
attention, will obligingly bear in mind that the Greek word represented
here by Joy and Rejoice roughly answered in Lucian's time to our Good-
morning and How do you do, as well as to the epistolary My dear----;
while that represented by Hail or Health did the work of Good-night,
Good-bye, Farewell, and (in letters) Yours truly.]
If a poor mortal has some difficulty in guarding against that spirit of
mischief which dwells aloft, he has still more in clearing himself of the
absurd consequences when that spirit trips him up. I am in both
predicaments at once; coming to make you my morning salutation, which
should have taken the orthodox form of Rejoice, I bade you, in a very
choice fit of absent-mindedness, Be healthy--a good enough wish in its
way, but a little untimely and unconnected with that early hour. I at
once went moist and red, not quite aware whether I was on my head or my
heels; some of the company took me for a lunatic, no doubt, some thought
I was in my second childhood, some that I had not quite got over my last
night's wine--though you yourself were the pink of good manners, not
showing your consciousness of the slip by any ghost of a smile. It
occurred to me to write to myself a little something in the way of
comfort, and so modify the distress my blunder gave me--prove to myself
that it was not absolutely unpardonable for an old man to transgress
etiquette so flagrantly before so many witnesses. As to apology, there
could be no occasion for that, when one's slip had resulted in so well-
omened a wish.
I began to write expecting my task to be very difficult, but found plenty
of material as I went on. I will defer it, however, till I have cleared
the way with a few necessary remarks on the three forms--Rejoice or Joy,
Prosper or Prosperity, Hail or Health. Joy is a very ancient greeting; but
it was not confined to the morning, or the first meeting. They did
use it when they first saw one another:
Joy to thee, Lord of this Tirynthian land!
But again at the moment when the wine succeeded to the meal:
Achilles, Joy! We lack not fair repast--
so says Odysseus discharging his embassy. And even at parting:
Joy be with you! And henceforth know me God,
No longer mortal man.
In fact the apostrophe was not limited to any particular season, as now
to the morning alone; indeed they used it on gloomy, nay, on the most
lamentable occasions; in Euripides, Polynices ends his life with the
words,
Joy with you! for the darkness closes on me.
Nor was it necessarily significative of friendliness; it could express
hatred and the determination to see no more of another. To wish much joy
to, was a regular form for ceasing to care about.
The modern use of the word dates back to Philippides the dispatch-runner.
Bringing the news of Marathon, he found the archons seated, in suspense
regarding the issue of the battle. 'Joy, we win!' he said, and died upon
his message, breathing his last in the word Joy. The earliest letter
beginning with it is that in which Cleon the Athenian demagogue, writing
from Sphacteria, sends the good news of his victory and capture of
Spartans at that place. However, later than that we find Nicias writing
from Sicily and keeping to the older custom of coming to business at once
with no such introduction.
Now the admirable Plato, no bad authority on such matters, would have us
reject the salutation Joy altogether; it is a mean wish, wanting in
seriousness, according to him; his substitute is Prosperity, which stands
for a satisfactory condition both of body and soul; in a letter to
Dionysius, he reproves him for commencing a hymn to Apollo with Joy,
which he maintains is unworthy of the Pythian, and not fit even for men
of any discretion, not to mention Gods.
Pythagoras the mystic has vouchsafed us no writings of his own; but we
may infer from his disciples, Ocellus the Lucanian and Archytas, for
instance, that he headed his letters neither with Joy nor Prosperity, but
recommended beginning with Hail. At any rate all the Pythagoreans in
writing to one another (when their tone is serious, that is) started with
wishing Health, which they took to be the prime need of soul and body
alike, and to include all human blessings. The Pentagram [Footnote: See
_Pythagoras_ in Notes.], that interlaced triple triangle which served them
as a sort of password, they called by the name Health. They argued that
Health included Joy and Prosperity, but that neither of those two was
coextensive with Health. Some of them gave to the Quaternion, [Footnote:
See _Pythagoras_ in Notes.] which is their most solemn oath, and sums
their perfect number, the name of Beginning of Health. Philolaus might be
quoted.
But I need hardly go so far back. Epicurus assuredly rejoiced in joy--
pleasure was the chief Good in his eyes; yet in his most earnest letters
(which are not very numerous), and in those to his most intimate friends,
he starts with Hail. And in tragedy and the old comedy you will
constantly find it used quite at the beginning. You remember,
Hail to thee, joy be thine--
which puts health before rejoicing clearly enough. And says Alexis:
All hail, my lord; after long time thou comest.
Again Achaeus:
I come in sorry plight, yet wish thee health.
And Philemon:
Health first I ask, and next prosperity,
Joy thirdly, and to owe not any man.
As for the writer of the drinking-song mentioned in Plato, what says
he?--'Best is health, and second beauty, and third wealth'; joy he
never so much as names. I need hardly adduce the trite saw:
Chief of them that blessings give,
Health, with thee I mean to live.
But, if Health is chief, her gift, which is the enjoyment of health,
should rank before other Goods.
I could multiply these examples by the thousand from poets, historians,
philosophers, who give Health the place of honour; but you will not
require any such childish pedantry of me, wiping out my original offence
by another; I shall do better to add a historical anecdote or two which
occur to me as relevant.
Eumenes of Cardia, writing to Antipater, states that just before the
battle of Issus, Hephaestion came at dawn into Alexander's tent. Either
in absence of mind and confusion like mine, or else under a divine
impulse, he gave the evening salutation like me--'Hail, sire; 'tis time
we were at our posts.' All present were confounded at the irregularity,
and Hephaestion himself was like to die of shame, when Alexander said, 'I
take the omen; it is a promise that we shall come back safe from battle.'
Antiochus Soter, about to engage the Galatians, dreamed that Alexander
stood over him and told him to give his men the password Health; and with
this word it was that he won that marvellous victory.
Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, in a letter to Seleucus, just reversed the
usual order, bidding him Hail at the beginning, and adding Rejoice at the
end instead of wishing him Health; this is recorded by Dionysodorus, the
collector of his letters.
The case of Pyrrhus the Epirot is well worth mention; as a general he was
only second to Alexander, and he experienced a thousand vicissitudes of
fortune. In all his prayers, sacrifices, and offerings, he never asked
for victory or increase of his royal dignity, for fame or excessive
wealth; his whole prayer was always in one word, Health; as long as he
had that, he thought all else would come of itself. And it was true
wisdom, in my opinion; he remembered that all other good things are
worthless, if health is wanting.
Oh, certainly (says some one); but we have assigned each form to its
proper place by this time; and if you disregard that--even though there
was no bad meaning in what you did say--you cannot fairly claim to have
made no mistake; it is as though one should put a helmet on the shins, or
greaves on the head. My dear sir (I reply), your simile would go on all
fours if there were any season at all which did not require health; but
in point of fact it is needed in the morning and at noonday and at night
--especially by busy rulers like you Romans, to whom physical condition
is so important. And again, the man who gives you Joy is only beginning
auspiciously; it is no more than a prayer; whereas he who bids you Hail
is doing you a practical service in reminding you of the means to health;
his is more than a prayer, it is a precept.
Why, in that book of instructions which you all receive from the Emperor,
is not the first recommendation to take care of your health? Quite
rightly; that is the condition precedent of efficiency. Moreover, if I
know any Latin, you yourselves, in _returning_ a salutation, constantly
use the equivalent of Health.
However, all this does not mean that I have deliberately abandoned
Rejoice and substituted Hail for it. I admit that it was quite
unintentional; I am not so foolish as to innovate like that, and exchange
the regular formulae.
No, I only thank Heaven that my stumble had such very fortunate results,
landing me in a better position than I had designed; may it not be that
Health itself, or Asclepius, inspired me to give you this promise of
health? How else should it have befallen me? In the course of a long life
I have never been guilty of such a confusion before.
Or, if I may not have recourse to the supernatural, it is no wonder that
my extreme desire to be known to you for good should so confuse me as to
work the contrary effect. Possibly, too, one might be robbed of one's
presence of mind by the crowd of military persons pushing for precedence,
or treating the salutation ceremony in their cavalier fashion.
As to yourself, I feel sure that, however others may have referred it to
stupidity, ignorance, or lunacy, you took it as the sign of a modest,
simple, unspoiled, unsophisticated soul. Absolute confidence in such
matters comes dangerously near audacity and impudence. My first wish
would be to make no such blunder; my second that, if I did, the resulting
omen should be good.
There is a story told of the first Augustus. He had given a correct legal
decision, which acquitted a maligned person of a most serious charge. The
latter expressed his gratitude in a loud voice, thus:--'I thank your
majesty for this bad and inequitable verdict.' Augustus's attendants
raged, and were ready to tear the man to pieces. But the Emperor
restrained them; 'Never mind what he said; it is what he meant that
matters.' That was Augustus's view. Well, take my meaning, and it was
good; or take my word, and it was auspicious.
And now that I have got to this point, I have reason to fear that I may
be suspected of having made the slip on purpose, leading up to this
apology. O God of health, only grant me that the quality of my piece may
justify the notion that I wanted no more than a peg whereon to hang an
essay!
HERMOTIMUS, OR THE RIVAL PHILOSOPHIES
_Lycinus. Hermotimus_
_Ly_. Good morning, Hermotimus; I guess by your book and the pace
you are going at that you are on your way to lecture, and a little late.
You were conning over something as you walked, your lips working and
muttering, your hand flung out this way and that as you got a speech into
order in your mind; you were doubtless inventing one of your crooked
questions, or pondering some tricky problem; never a vacant mind, even in
the streets; always on the stretch and in earnest, bent on advancing in
your studies.
_Her_. I admit the impeachment; I was running over the details of
what he said in yesterday's lecture. One must lose no chance, you know;
the Coan doctor [Footnote: Hippocrates] spoke so truly: _ars longa,
vita brevis_. And what be referred to was only physic--a simpler
matter. As to philosophy, not only will you never attain it, however long
you study, unless you are wide awake all the time, contemplating it with
intense eager gaze; the stake is so tremendous, too,--whether you shall
rot miserably with the vulgar herd, or be counted among philosophers and
reach Happiness.
_Ly_. A glorious prize, indeed! however, you cannot be far off it
now, if one may judge by the time you have given to philosophy, and the
extraordinary vigour of your long pursuit. For twenty years now, I should
say, I have watched you perpetually going to your professors, generally
bent over a book taking notes of past lectures, pale with thought and
emaciated in body. I suspect you find no release even in your dreams, you
are so wrapped up in the thing. With all this you must surely get hold of
Happiness soon, if indeed you have not found it long ago without telling
us.
_Her_. Alas, Lycinus, I am only just beginning to get an inkling of
the right way. Very far off dwells Virtue, as Hesiod says, and long and
steep and rough is the way thither, and travellers must bedew it with
sweat.
_Ly_. And you have not yet sweated and travelled enough?
_Her_. Surely not; else should I have been on the summit, with
nothing left between me and bliss; but I am only starting yet, Lycinus.
_Ly_. Ah, but Hesiod, your own authority, tells us, Well begun is
half done; so we may safely call you half-way by this time.
_Her_. Not even there yet; that would indeed have been much.
_Ly_. Where _shall_ we put you, then?
_Her_. Still on the lower slopes, just making an effort to get on;
but it is slippery and rough, and needs a helping hand.
_Ly_. Well, your master can give you that; from his station on the
summit, like Zeus in Homer with his golden cord, he can let you down his
discourse, and therewith haul and heave you up to himself and to the
Virtue which he has himself attained this long time.
_Her_. The very picture of what he is doing; if it depended on him
alone, I should have been hauled up long ago; it is my part that is still
wanting.
_Ly_. You must be of good cheer and keep a stout heart; gaze at the
end of your climb and the Happiness at the top, and remember that he is
working with you. What prospect does he hold out? when are you to be up?
does he think you will be on the top next year--by the Great Mysteries,
or the Panathenaea, say?
_Her_. Too soon, Lycinus.
_Ly_. By next Olympiad, then?
_Her_. All too short a time, even that, for habituation to Virtue
and attainment of Happiness.
_Ly_. Say two Olympiads, then, for an outside estimate. You may fairly be
found guilty of laziness, if you cannot get it done by then; the time
would allow you three return trips from the Pillars of Heracles to India,
with a margin for exploring the tribes on the way instead of sailing
straight and never stopping. How much higher and more slippery, pray, is
the peak on which your Virtue dwells than that Aornos crag which Alexander
stormed in a few days?
_Her_. There is no resemblance, Lycinus; this is not a thing, as you
conceive it, to be compassed and captured quickly, though ten thousand
Alexanders were to assault it; in that case, the sealers would have been
legion. As it is, a good number begin the climb with great confidence,
and do make progress, some very little indeed, others more; but when they
get half-way, they find endless difficulties and discomforts, lose heart,
and turn back, panting, dripping, and exhausted. But those who endure to
the end reach the top, to be blessed thenceforth with wondrous days,
looking down from their height upon the ants which are the rest of
mankind.
_Ly_. Dear me, what tiny things you make us out--not so big as the Pygmies
even, but positively grovelling on the face of the earth. I quite
understand it; your thoughts are up aloft already. And we, the common men
that walk the earth, shall mingle you with the Gods in our prayers; for
you are translated above the clouds, and gone up whither you have so long
striven.
_Her_. If but that ascent might be, Lycinus! but it is far yet.
_Ly_. But you have never told me _how_ far, in terms of time.
_Her_. No; for I know not precisely myself. My guess is that it will
not be more than twenty years; by that time I shall surely be on the
summit.
_Ly_. Mercy upon us, you take long views!
_Her_. Ay; but, as the toil, so is the reward.
_Ly_. That may be; but about these twenty years--have you your master's
promise that you will live so long? is he prophet as well as philosopher?
or is it a soothsayer or Chaldean expert that you trust? such things are
known to them, I understand. You would never, of course, if there were any
uncertainty of your life's lasting to the Virtue-point, slave and toil
night and day like this; why, just as you were close to the top, your fate
might come upon you, lay hold of you by the heel, and lug you down with
your hopes unfulfilled.
_Her_. God forbid! these are words of ill omen, Lycinus; may life be
granted me, that I may grow wise, and have if it be but one day of
Happiness!
_Ly_. For all these toils will you be content with your one day?
_Her_. Content? yes, or with the briefest moment of it.
_Ly_. But is there indeed Happiness up there--and worth all the pains? How
can you tell? You have never been up yourself.
_Her_. I trust my master's word; and he knows well; is he not on the
topmost height?
_Ly_. Oh, do tell me what he says about it; what is Happiness like?
wealth, glory, pleasures incomparable?
_Her_. Hush, friend! all these have nought to do with the Virtuous
life.
_Ly_. Well, if these will not do, what _are_ the good things he offers to
those who carry their course right through?
_Her_. Wisdom, courage, true beauty, justice, full and firm knowledge of
all things as they are; but wealth and glory and pleasure and all bodily
things--these a man strips off and abandons before he mounts up, like
Heracles burning on Mount Oeta before deification; he too cast off
whatever of the human he had from his mother, and soared up to the Gods
with his divine part pure and unalloyed, sifted by the fire. Even so those
I speak of are purged by the philosophic fire of all that deluded men
count admirable, and reaching the summit have Happiness with never a
thought of wealth and glory and pleasure--except to smile at any who count
them more than phantoms.
_Ly_. By Heracles (and his death on Oeta), they quit themselves like
men, and have their reward, it seems. But there is one thing I should
like to know: are they allowed to come down from their elevation
sometimes, and have a taste of what they left behind them? or when they
have once got up, must they stay there, conversing with Virtue, and
smiling at wealth and glory and pleasure?
_Her_. The latter, assuredly; more than that, a man once admitted of
Virtue's company will never be subject to wrath or fear or desire any
more; no, nor can he feel pain, nor any such sensation.
_Ly_. Well, but--if one might dare to say what one thinks--but no--let me
keep a good tongue in my head--it were irreverent to pry into what wise
men do.
_Her_. Nay, nay; let me know your meaning.
_Ly_. Dear friend, I have not the courage.
_Her_. Out with it, my good fellow; we are alone.
_Ly_. Well, then--most of your account I followed and accepted--how
they grow wise and brave and just, and the rest--indeed I was quite
fascinated by it; but then you went on to say they despised wealth and
glory and pleasure; well, just there (quite between ourselves, you know)
I was pulled up; I thought of a scene t'other day with--shall I tell you
whom? Perhaps we can do without a name?
_Her_. No, no; we must have that too.
_Ly_. Your own professor himself, then,--a person to whom all
respect is due, surely, not to mention his years.
_Her_. Well?
_Ly_. You know the Heracleot, quite an old pupil of his in philosophy by
this time--red-haired--likes an argument?
_Her_. Yes; Dion, he is called.
_Ly_. Well, I suppose he had not paid up punctually; anyhow the other day
the old man haled him before the magistrate, with a halter made of his own
coat; he was shouting and fuming, and if some friends had not come up and
got the young man out of his hands, he would have bitten off his nose, he
was in such a temper.
_Her_. Ah, _he_ is a bad character, always an unconscionable time paying
his debts. There are plenty of others who owe the professor money, and he
has never treated any of them so; they pay him his interest punctually.
_Ly_. Not so fast; what in the world does it matter to him, if they do not
pay up? he is purified by philosophy, and has no further need of the cast
clothes of Oeta.
_Her_. Do you suppose his interest in such things is selfish? no, but he
has little ones; his care is to save them from indigence.
_Ly_. Whereas he ought to have brought them up to Virtue too, and let them
share his inexpensive Happiness.
_Her_. Well, I have no time to argue it, Lycinus; I must not be late for
lecture, lest in the end I find myself left behind.
_Ly_. Don't be afraid, my duteous one; to-day is a holiday; I can save you
the rest of your walk.
_Her_. What do you mean?
_Ly_. You will not find him just now, if the notice is to be trusted;
there was a tablet over the door announcing in large print, No meeting
this day. I hear he dined yesterday with the great Eucrates, who was
keeping his daughter's birthday. He talked a good deal of philosophy
over the wine, and lost his temper a little with Euthydemus the
Peripatetic; they were debating the old Peripatetic objections to the
Porch. His long vocal exertions (for it was midnight before they broke
up) gave him a bad headache, with violent perspiration. I fancy he had
also drunk a little too much, toasts being the order of the day, and
eaten more than an old man should. When he got home, he was very ill,
they said, just managed to check and lock up carefully the slices of meat
which he had conveyed to his servant at table, and then, giving orders
that he was not at home, went to sleep, and has not waked since. I
overheard Midas his man telling this to some of his pupils; there were a
number of them coming away.
_Her_. Which had the victory, though, he or Euthydemus--if Midas said
anything about that?
_Ly_. Why, at first, I gathered, it was very even between them; but you
Stoics had it in the end, and your master was much too hard for him.
Euthydemus did not even get off whole; he had a great cut on his head. He
was pretentious, insisted on proving his point, would not give in, and
proved a hard nut to crack; so your excellent professor, who had a goblet
as big as Nestor's in his hand, brought this down on him as he lay within
easy reach, and the victory was his.
_Her_. Good; so perish all who will not yield to their betters!
_Ly_. Very reasonable, Hermotimus; what was Euthydemus thinking of, to
irritate an old man who is purged of wrath and master of his passions,
when he had such a heavy goblet in his hand?
But we have time to spare--you might tell a friend like me the story of
your start in philosophy; then I might perhaps, if it is not too late,
begin now and join your school; you are my friends; you will not be
exclusive?
_Her_. If only you would, Lycinus! you will soon find out how much you are
superior to the rest of men. I do assure you, you will think them all
children, you will be so much wiser.
_Ly_. Enough for me, if after twenty years of it I am where you are now.
_Her_. Oh, I was about your age when I started on philosophy; I was forty;
and you must be about that.
_Ly_. Just that; so take and lead me on the same way; that is but right.
And first tell me--do you allow learners to criticize, if they find
difficulties in your doctrines, or must juniors abstain from that?
_Her_. Why, yes, they must; but _you_ shall have leave to ask questions
and criticize; you will learn easier that way.
_Ly_. I thank you for it, Hermotimus, by your name-God Hermes.
Now, is there only one road to philosophy--the Stoic way? they tell me
there are a great many other philosophers; is that so?
_Her_. Certainly--Peripatetics, Epicureans, Platonists, followers of
Diogenes, Antisthenes, Pythagoras, and more yet.
_Ly_. Quite so; numbers of them. Now, are their doctrines the same,
or different?
_Her_. Entirely different.
_Ly_. But the truth, I presume, is bound to be in one of them, and not in
all, as they differ?
_Her_. Certainly.
_Ly_. Then, as you love me, answer this: when you first went in pursuit of
philosophy, you found many gates wide open; what induced you to pass the
others by, and go in at the Stoic gate? Why did you assume that that was
the only true one, which would set you on the straight road to Virtue,
while the rest all opened on blind alleys? What was the test you applied
_then_? Please abolish your present self, the self which is now
instructed, or half-instructed, and better able to distinguish between
good and bad than we outsiders, and answer in your then character of a
layman, with no advantage over me as I am now.
_Her_. I cannot tell what you are driving at.
_Ly_. Oh, there is nothing recondite about it. There are a great many
philosophers--let us say Plato, Aristotle, Antisthenes, and your spiritual
fathers, Chrysippus, Zeno, and all the rest of them; what was it that
induced you, leaving the rest alone, to pick out the school you did from
among them all, and pin your philosophic faith to it? Were you favoured
like Chaerephon with a revelation from Apollo? Did he tell you the Stoics
were the best of men, and send you to their school? I dare say he
recommends different philosophers to different persons, according to
their individual needs?
_Her_. Nothing of the kind, Lycinus; I never consulted him upon it.
_Ly_. Why? was it not a _dignus vindice nodus_? or were you confident in
your own unaided discrimination?
_Her_. Why, yes; I was.
_Ly_. Then this must be my first lesson from you--how one can decide
out of hand which is the best and the true philosophy to be taken, and
the others left.
_Her_. I will tell you: I observed that it attracted most disciples, and
thence inferred that it was superior.
_Ly_. Give me figures; how many more of them than of Epicureans,
Platonists, Peripatetics? Of course you took a sort of show of hands.
_Her_. Well, no; I didn't count; I just guessed.
_Ly_. Now, now! you are not teaching, but hoaxing me; judge by guess
work and impression, indeed, on a thing of this importance! You are
hiding the truth.
_Her_. Well, that was not my only way; every one told me the Epicureans
were sensual and self-indulgent, the Peripatetics avaricious and
contentious, the Platonists conceited and vain; about the Stoics, on the
contrary, many said they had fortitude and an open mind; he who goes their
way, I heard, was the true king and millionaire and wise man, alone and
all in one.
_Ly_. And, of course, it was other people who so described them; you
would not have taken their own word for their excellences.
_Her_. Certainly not; it was others who said it.
_Ly_. Not their rivals, I suppose?
_Her_. Oh, no.
_Ly_. Laymen, then?
_Her_. Just so.
_Ly_. There you are again, cheating me with your irony; you take me for a
blockhead, who will believe that an intelligent person like Hermotimus, at
the age of forty, would accept the word of laymen about philosophy and
philosophers, and make his own selection on the strength of what they
said.
_Her_. But you see, Lycinus, I did not depend on their judgement entirely,
but on my own too. I saw the Stoics going about with dignity, decently
dressed and groomed, ever with a thoughtful air and a manly countenance,
as far from effeminacy as from the utter repulsive negligence of the
Cynics, bearing themselves, in fact, like moderate men; and every one
admits that moderation is right.
_Ly_. Did you ever see them behaving like your master, as I described him
to you just now? Lending money and clamouring for payment, losing their
tempers in philosophic debates, and making other exhibitions of
themselves? Or perhaps these are trifles, so long as the dress is
decent, the beard long, and the hair close-cropped? We are provided for
the future, then, with an infallible rule and balance, guaranteed by
Hermotimus? It is by appearance and walk and haircutting that the best
men are to be distinguished; and whosoever has not these marks, and is
not solemn and thoughtful, shall be condemned and rejected?
Nay, do not play with me like this; you want to see whether I shall catch
you at it.
_Her_. Why do you say that?
_Ly_. Because, my dear sir, this appearance test is one for statues;
_their_ decent orderly attire has it easily over the Stoics, because
Phidias or Alcamenes or Myron designed them to be graceful. However,
granting as much as you like that these are the right tests, what is a
blind man to do, if he wants to take up philosophy? how is he to find the
man whose principles are right, when he cannot see his appearance or gait?
_Her_. I am not teaching the blind, Lycinus; I have nothing to do with
them.
_Ly_. Ah, but, my good sir, there ought to have been some universal
criterion, in a matter of such great and general use. Still, if you will
have it so, let the blind be excluded from philosophy, as they cannot
see--though, by the way, they are just the people who most need
philosophy to console them for their misfortune; but now, the people who
_can_ see--give them the utmost possible acuity of vision, and what
can they detect of the spiritual qualities from this external shell?
What I mean is this: was it not from admiration of their _spirit_ that you
joined them, expecting to have your own spirit purified?
_Her_. Assuredly.
_Ly_. How could you possibly discern the true philosopher from the
false, then, by the marks you mentioned? It is not the way of such
qualities to come out like that; they are hidden and secret; they are
revealed only under long and patient observation, in talk and debate and
the conduct they inspire. You have probably heard of Momus's indictment
of Hephaestus; if not, you shall have it now. According to the myth,
Athene, Posidon, and Hephaestus had a match in inventiveness. Posidon
made a bull, Athene planned a house, Hephaestus constructed a man; when
they came before Momus, who was to judge, he examined their productions;
I need not trouble you with his criticisms of the other two; but his
objection to the man, and the fault he found with Hephaestus, was this:
he should have made a window in his chest, so that, when it was opened,
his thoughts and designs, his truth or falsehood, might have been
apparent. Momus must have been blear-eyed, to have such ideas about men;
but you have sharper eyes than Lynceus, and pierce through the chest to
what is inside; all is patent to you, not merely any man's wishes and
sentiments, but the comparative merits of any pair.
_Her_. You trifle, Lycinus. I made a pious choice, and do not repent it;
that is enough for me.
_Ly_. And will you yet make a mystery of it to your friend, and let him be
lost with the vulgar herd?
_Her_. Why, you will not accept anything I say.
_Ly_. On the contrary, my good sir, it is you who will not say anything I
can accept. Well, as you refuse me your confidence, and are so jealous of
my becoming a philosopher and your equal, I must even do my best to find
out the infallible test and learn to choose safely for myself. And you may
listen, if you like.
_Her_. That I will, Lycinus; you will very likely hit on some good idea.
_Ly_. Then attend, and do not mock me, if my inquiry is quite
unscientific; it is all I can do, as you, who know better, will not give
me any clearer light.
I conceive Virtue, then, under the figure of a State whose citizens are
happy--as your professor, who is one of them, phrases it,--absolutely
wise, all of them brave, just, and self-controlled, hardly
distinguishable, in fact, from Gods. All sorts of things that go on here,
such as robbery, assault, unfair gain, you will never find attempted
there, I believe; their relations are all peace and unity; and this is
quite natural, seeing that none of the things which elsewhere occasion
strife and rivalry, and prompt men to plot against their neighbours, so
much as come in their way at all. Gold, pleasures, distinctions, they
never regard as objects of dispute; they have banished them long ago as
undesirable elements. Their life is serene and blissful, in the enjoyment
of legality, equality, liberty, and all other good things.
_Her_. Well, Lycinus? Must not all men yearn to belong to a State like
that, and never count the toil of getting there, nor lose heart over the
time it takes? Enough that one day they will arrive, and be naturalized,
and given the franchise.
_Ly_. In good truth, Hermotimus, we should devote all our efforts to
this, and neglect everything else; we need pay little heed to any claims
of our earthly country; we should steel our hearts against the clingings
and cryings of children or parents, if we have them; it is well if we can
induce them to go with us; but, if they will not or cannot, shake them
off and march straight for the city of bliss, leaving your coat in their
hands, if they lay hold of it to keep you back, in your hurry to get
there; what matter for a coat? You will be admitted there without one.
I remember hearing a description of it all once before from an old man,
who urged me to go there with him. He would show me the way, enroll me
when I got there, introduce me to his own circles, and promise me a share
in the universal Happiness. But I was stiff-necked, in my youthful folly
(it was some fifteen years ago); else might I have been in the outskirts,
nay, haply at the very gates, by now. Among the noteworthy things he told
me, I seem to remember these: all the citizens are aliens and foreigners,
not a native among them; they include numbers of barbarians, slaves,
cripples, dwarfs, and poor; in fact any one is admitted; for their law
does not associate the franchise with income, with shape, size, or
beauty, with old or brilliant ancestry; these things are not considered
at all; any one who would be a citizen needs only understanding, zeal for
the right, energy, perseverance, fortitude and resolution in facing all
the trials of the road; whoever proves his possession of these by
persisting till he reaches the city is _ipso facto_ a full citizen,
regardless of his antecedents. Such distinctions as superior and
inferior, noble and common, bond and free, simply do not exist there,
even in name.
_Her_. There, now; you see I am not wasting my pains on trifles; I
yearn to be counted among the citizens of that fair and happy State.
_Ly_. Why, your yearning is mine too; there is nothing I would sooner pray
for. If the city had been near at hand and plain for all to see, be
assured I would never have doubted, nor needed prompting; I would have
gone thither and had my franchise long ago; but as you tell me--you and
your bard Hesiod--that it is set exceeding far off, one must find out
the way to it, and the best guide. You agree?
_Her_. Of course that is the only thing to do.
_Ly_. Now, so far as promises and professions go, there is no lack of
guides; there are numbers of them waiting about, all representing
themselves as from there. But instead of one single road there seem to be
many different and inconsistent ones. North and South, East and West,
they go; one leads through meadows and vegetation and shade, and is well
watered and pleasant, with never a stumbling-block or inequality; another
is rough and rocky, threatening heat and drought and toil. Yet all these
are supposed to lead to the one city, though they take such different
directions.
That is where my difficulty lies; whichever of them I try, there is sure
to be a most respectable person stationed just at the entrance, with a
welcoming hand and an exhortation to go his way; each of them says he is
the only one who knows the straight road; his rivals are all mistaken,
have never been themselves, nor learnt the way from competent guides. I
go to his neighbour, and he gives the same assurances about _his_ way,
abusing the other respectable persons; and so the next, and the next, and
the next. This multiplicity and dissimilarity of the roads gives me
searchings of heart, and still more the assertiveness and self-
satisfaction of the guides; I really cannot tell which turning or whose
directions are most likely to bring me to the city.
_Her_. Oh, but I can solve that puzzle for you; you cannot go wrong,
if you trust those who have been already.
_Ly_. Which do you mean? those who have been by which road, and under
whose guidance? It is the old puzzle in a new form; you have only
substituted men for measures.
_Her_. How do you mean?
_Ly_. Why, the man who has taken Plato's road and travelled with him will
recommend that road; so with Epicurus and the rest; and _you_ will
recommend your own. How else, Hermotimus? it must be so.
_Her_. Well, of course.
_Ly_. So you have not solved my puzzle; I know just as little as before
which traveller to trust; I find that each of them, as well as his guide,
has tried one only, which he now recommends and will have to be the only
one leading to the city. Whether he tells the truth I have no means of
knowing; that he has attained _some_ end, and seen _some_ city, I may
perhaps allow; but whether he saw the right one, or whether, Corinth being
the real goal, he got to Babylon and thought he had seen Corinth--that is
still undecided; for surely every one who has seen a city has not seen
Corinth, unless Corinth is the only city there is. But my greatest
difficulty of all is the absolute certainty that the true road is one; for
Corinth is one, and the other roads lead anywhere but to Corinth, though
there may be people deluded enough to suppose that the North road and the
South road lead equally to Corinth.
_Her_. But that is absurd, Lycinus; they go opposite ways, you see.
_Ly_. Then, my dear good man, this choice of roads and guides is quite a
serious matter; we can by no means just follow our noses; we shall be
discovering that we are well on the way to Babylon or Bactria instead of
to Corinth. Nor is it advisable to toss up, either, on the chance that we
may hit upon the right way if we start upon any one at a venture. That is
no impossibility; it may have come off once and again in a cycle; but I
cannot think we ought to gamble recklessly with such high stakes, nor
commit our hopes to a frail craft, like the wise men who went to sea in a
bowl; we should have no fair complaint against Fortune, if her arrow or
dart did not precisely hit the centre; the odds are ten thousand to one
against her; just so the archer in Homer--Teucer, I suppose it was--when
he meant to hit the dove, only cut the string, which held it; of course it
is infinitely more likely that the point of the arrow will find its billet
in one of the numberless other places, than just in that particular
central one. And as to the perils of blundering into one of the wrong
roads instead of the right one, misled by a belief in the discretion of
Fortune, here is an illustration:--it is no easy matter to turn back and
get safe into port when you have once cast loose your moorings and
committed yourself to the breeze; you are at the mercy of the sea,
frightened, sick and sorry with your tossing about, most likely. Your
mistake was at the beginning: before leaving, you should have gone up to
some high point, and observed whether the wind was in the right quarter,
and of the right strength for a crossing to Corinth, not neglecting, by
the way, to secure the very best pilot obtainable, and a seaworthy craft
equal to so high a sea.
_Her_. Much better so, Lycinus. However, I know that, if you go the
whole round, you will find no better guides or more expert pilots than
the Stoics; if you mean ever to get to Corinth, you will follow them, in
the tracks of Chrysippus and Zeno. It is the only way to do it.
_Ly_. Ah, many can play at the game of assertion. Plato's fellow
traveller, Epicurus's follower, and all the rest, will tell me just what
you do, that I shall never get to Corinth except with whichever of them
it is. So I must either believe them all, or disbelieve impartially. The
latter is much the safest, until we have found out the truth.
Put a case, now: just as I am, as uncertain as ever which of the whole
number has the truth, I choose your school; I rely on you, who are my
friend, but who still know only the Stoic doctrine, and have not
travelled any way but that. Now some God brings Plato, Pythagoras,
Aristotle, and the rest to life again; they gather round and cross-
examine me, or actually sue me in court for constructive defamation;
_Good Lycinus_, they say, _what possessed or who induced you to
exalt Chrysippus and Zeno at our expense? we are far older established;
they are mere creatures of yesterday; yet you never gave us a hearing,
nor inquired into our statements at all_. Well, what am I to plead?
will it avail me to say I trusted my friend Hermotimus? I feel sure they
will say, _We know not this Hermotimus, who he is, nor he us; you had
no right to condemn us all, and give judgement by default against us, on
the authority of a man who knew only one of the philosophic roads, and
even that, perhaps, imperfectly. These are not the instructions issued to
juries, Lycinus; they are not to hear one party, and, refuse the other
permission to say what he deems advisable; they are to hear both sides
alike, with a view to the better sifting of truth from falsehood by
comparison of the arguments; if they fail in these duties, the law allows
an appeal to another court_. That is what we may expect them to say.
Then one of them might proceed to question me like this: _Suppose,
Lycinus, that an Ethiopian who had never been abroad in his life, nor
seen other men like us, were to state categorically in an Ethiopian
assembly that there did not exist on earth any white or yellow men--
nothing but blacks--, would his statement be accepted? or would some
Ethiopian elder remark, How do you know, my confident friend? you have
never been in foreign parts, nor had any experience of other nations._
Shall I tell him the old man's question was justified? what do you
advise, my counsel?
_Her_. Say that, certainly; I consider the old man's rebuke quite
reasonable.
_Ly_. So do I. But I am not so sure you will approve what comes
next; as for me, I have as little doubt of that as of the other.
_Her_. What is it?
_Ly_. The next step will be the application; my questioner will say,
_Now Lycinus, let us suppose an analogue, in a person acquainted only
with the Stoic doctrine, like your friend Hermotimus; he has never
travelled in Plato's country, or to Epicurus, or any other land; now, if
he were to state that there was no such beauty or truth in those many
countries as there is in the Porch and its teaching, would you not be
justified in considering it bold of him to give you his opinion about
them all, whereas he knew only one, having never set foot outside the
bounds of Ethiopia?_ What reply do you advise to that?
_Her_. The perfectly true one, of course, that it is indeed the Stoic
doctrine that we study fully, being minded to sink or swim with that, but
still we do know what the others say also; our teacher rehearses the
articles of their beliefs to us incidentally, and demolishes them with his
comments.
_Ly_. Do you suppose the Platonists, Pythagoreans, Epicureans, and
other schools, will let that pass? or will they laugh out loud and say,
_What remarkable methods your friend has, Lycinus! he accepts our
adversaries' character of us, and gathers our doctrines from the
description of people who do not know, or deliberately misrepresent them.
If he were to see an athlete getting his muscles in trim by kicking high,
or hitting out at empty space as though he were getting a real blow home,
would he (in the capacity of umpire) at once proclaim him victor, because
he _could not help winning_? No; _he would reflect that these displays are
easy and safe, when there is no defence to be reckoned with, and that the
real decision must wait till he has beaten and mastered his opponent, and
the latter 'has had enough'. Well then, do not let Hermotimus suppose from
his teachers' sparrings with our shadows (for _we_ are not there) that
they have the victory, or that our doctrines are so easily upset; tell him
the business is too like the sand houses which children, having built them
weak, have no difficulty in overturning, or, to change the figure, like
people practising archery; they make a straw target, hang it to a post,
plant it a little way off, and then let fly at it; if they hit and get
through the straw, they burst into a shout, as if it were a great triumph
to have driven through the dry stuff. That is not the way the Persians
take, or those Scythian tribes which use the bow. Generally, when _they_
shoot, in the first place they are themselves mounted and in motion, and
secondly, they like the mark to be moving too; it is not to be stationary,
waiting for the arrival of the arrow, but passing at full speed; they can
usually kill beasts, and their marksmen hit birds. If it ever happens that
they want to test the actual impact on a target, they set up one of stout
wood, or a shield of raw hide; piercing that, they reckon that their
shafts will go through armour too. So, Lycinus, tell Hermotimus from us
that his teachers fierce straw targets, and then say they have disposed of
armed men; or paint up figures of us, spar at them, and, after a not
surprising success, think they have beaten us. But we shall severally
quote against them Achilles's words against Hector:
They dare not face the nodding of my plume._
So say all of them, one after the other.
I suspect that Plato, with his intimate knowledge of Sicily, will add an
anecdote from there. Gelo of Syracuse had disagreeable breath, but did
not find it out himself for a long time, no one venturing to mention such
a circumstance to a tyrant. At last a foreign woman who had a connexion
with him dared to tell him; whereupon he went to his wife and scolded her
for never having, with all her opportunities of knowing, warned him of
it; she put in the defence that, as she had never been familiar or at
close quarters with any other man, she had supposed all men were like
that. So Hermotinus (Plato will say) after his exclusive association with
Stoics, cannot be expected to know the savour of other people's mouths.
Chrysippus, on the other hand, might say as much or more if I were to put
_him_ out of court and betake myself to Platonism, in reliance upon
some one who had conversed with Plato alone. And in a word, as long as it
is uncertain which is the true philosophic school, I choose none; choice
of one is insult to the rest.
_Her_. For Heaven's sake, Lycinus, let us leave Plato, Aristotle,
Epicurus, and the rest of them alone; to argue with them is not for me.
Why not just hold a private inquiry, you and I, whether philosophy is
what I say it is? As for the Ethiopians and Gelo's wife, what a long way
you have brought them on none of their business!
_Ly_. Away with them, then, if you find their company superfluous.
And now do you proceed; my expectations are high.
_Her_. Well, it seems to me perfectly possible, Lycinus, after
studying the Stoic doctrines alone, to get at the truth from them,
without going through a course of all the others too. Look at it this
way: if any one tells you simply, Twice two is four, need you go round
all the mathematicians to find out whether there is one who makes it
five, or seven; or would you know at once that the man was right?
_Ly_. Certainly I should.
_Her_. Then why should you think it impossible for a man who finds,
without going further, that the Stoics make true statements, to believe
them and dispense with further witness? He knows that four can never be
five, though ten thousand Platos or Pythagorases said it was.
_Ly_. Not to the point. You compare accepted with disputed facts,
whereas they are completely different. Tell me, did you ever meet a man
who said twice two was seven or eleven?
_Her_. Not I; any one who did not make four of it must be mad.
_Ly_. But on the other hand--try to tell the truth, I adjure you--,
did you ever meet a Stoic and an Epicurean who did _not_ differ
about principles or ends?
_Her_. No.
_Ly_. You are an honest man; now ask yourself whether you are trapping a
friend with false logic. We are trying to find out with whom philosophic
truth lies; and you beg the question and make a present of that same truth
to the Stoics; for you say (what is quite unproved) that they are the
people who make twice two four; the Epicureans or Platonists would say
that _they_ bring out that result, whereas you get five or seven. Does it
not amount to that, when your school reckon goodness the only end, and the
Epicureans pleasure? or again when you say everything is material, and
Plato recognizes an immaterial element also in all that exists? As I said,
you lay hold of the thing in dispute, as though it were the admitted
property of the Stoics, and put it into their hands, though the others
claim it and maintain that it is theirs; why, it is the very point at
issue. If it is once established that Stoics have the monopoly of making
four out of twice two, it is time for the rest to hold their tongues; but
as long as they refuse to yield that point, we must hear all alike, or be
prepared for people's calling us partial judges.
_Her_. It seems to me, Lycinus, you do not understand what I mean.
_Ly_. Very well, put it plainer, if it is something different from that.
_Her_. You will see in a minute. Let us suppose two people have gone
into the temple of Asclepius or Dionysus, and subsequently one of the
sacred cups is missing. Both of them will have to be searched, to see
which has it about him.
_Ly_. Clearly.
_Her_. Of course one of them has it.
_Ly_. Necessarily, if it is missing.
_Her_. Then, if you find it on the first, you will not strip the other; it
is clear he has not got it.
_Ly_. Quite.
_Her_. And if we fail to find it on the first, the other certainly has it;
it is unnecessary to search him that way either.
_Ly_. Yes, he has it.
_Her_. So with us; if we find the cup in the possession of the Stoics, we
shall not care to go on and search the others; we have what we were
looking for; why trouble further?
_Ly_. There is no why, if you really find it, and can be certain it
is the missing article, the sacred object being unmistakable. But there
are some differences in this case, friend, the temple-visitors are not
two, so that if one has not got the booty the other has, but many; and
the identity of the missing object is also uncertain; it may be cup, or
bowl, or garland; every priest gives a different description of it; they
do not agree even about the material; bronze, say these, silver, say
those--anything from gold to tin. So there is nothing for it but to strip
the visitors, if you want to find it; even if you discover a gold cup on
the first man, you must go on to the others.
_Her_. What for?
_Ly_. Because it is not certain that the thing was a cup. And even if that
is generally admitted, they do not all agree that it was gold; and if it
is well known that a gold cup is missing, and you find a gold cup on your
first man, even so you are not quit of searching the others; it is not
clear that this is _the_ sacred cup; do you suppose there is only one gold
cup in the world?
_Her_. No, indeed.
_Ly_. So you will have to go the round, and then collect all your finds
together and decide which of them is most likely to be divine property.
For the source of all the difficulty is this: every one who is stripped
has something or other on him, one a bowl, one a cup, one a garland,
which again may be bronze, gold, or silver; but whether the one he has is
the sacred one, is not yet clear. It is absolutely impossible to know
which man to accuse of sacrilege; even if all the objects were similar,
it would be uncertain who had robbed the God; for such things may be
private property too. Our perplexity, of course, is simply due to the
fact that the missing cup--assume it to be a cup--has no inscription; if
either the God's or the donor's name had been on it, we should not have
had all this trouble; when we found the inscribed one, we should have
stopped stripping and inconveniencing other visitors. I suppose,
Hermotimus, you have often been at athletic meetings?
_Her_. You suppose right; and in many places too.
_Ly_. Did you ever have a seat close by the judges?
_Her_. Dear me, yes; last Olympia, I was on the left of the stewards;
Euandridas of Elis had got me a place in the Elean enclosure; I
particularly wanted to have a near view of how things are done there.
_Ly_. So you know how they arrange ties for the wrestling or the
pancratium?
_Her_. Yes.
_Ly_. Then you will describe it better than I, as you have seen it
so close.
_Her_. In old days, when Heracles presided, bay leaves--
_Ly_. No old days, thank you; tell me what you saw with your own
eyes.
_Her_. A consecrated silver urn is produced, and into it are thrown
little lots about the size of a bean, with letters on them. Two are
marked alpha [Footnote: The Greek alphabet runs: alpha, beta, gamma,
delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi,
omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega.], two beta,
two more gamma, and so on, if the competitors run to more than that--two
lots always to each letter. A competitor comes up, makes a prayer to
Zeus, dips his hand into the urn, and pulls out one lot; then another
does the same; there is a policeman to each drawer, who holds his hand so
that he cannot see what letter he has drawn. When all have drawn, the
chief police officer, I think it is, or one of the stewards themselves--I
cannot quite remember this detail--, goes round and examines the lots
while they stand in a circle, and puts together the two alphas for the
wrestling or pancratium, and so for the two betas, and the rest. That is
the procedure when the number of competitors is even, as eight, four, or
twelve. If it is five, seven, nine, or other odd number, an odd letter is
marked on one lot, which is put in with the others, not having a
duplicate. Whoever draws this is a bye, and waits till the rest have
finished their ties; no duplicate turns up for him, you see; and it is a
considerable advantage to an athlete, to know that he will come fresh
against tired competitors.
_Ly_. Stop there; that is just what I wanted. There are nine of them, we
will say, and they have all drawn, and the lots are in their hands. You go
round--for I promote you from spectator to steward--examining the letters;
and I suppose you will not know who is the bye till you have been to them
all and paired them.
_Her_. How do you mean?
_Ly_. It is impossible for you to hit straight upon the letter which
indicates the bye; at least, you may hit upon the letter, but you will
not know about the bye; it was not announced beforehand that kappa or mu
or iota had the appointment in its gift; when you find alpha, you look
for the holder of the other alpha, whom finding, you pair the two. Again
finding beta, you inquire into the whereabouts of the second beta which
matches it; and so all through, till there is no one left but the holder
of the single unpaired letter.
_Her_. But suppose you come upon it first or second, what will you do
then?
_Ly_. Never mind me; I want to know what _you_ will do, Mr. Steward. Will
you say at once, Here is the bye? or will you have to go round to all, and
see whether there is a duplicate to be found, it being impossible to know
the bye till you have seen all the lots?
_Her_. Why, Lycinus, I shall know quite easily; nine being the number, if
I find the epsilon first or second, I know the holder of it for the bye.
_Ly_. But how?
_Her_. How? Why, two of them must have alpha, two beta, and of the
next two pairs one has certainly drawn gammas and the other deltas, so
that four letters have been used up over eight competitors. Obviously,
then, the next letter, which is epsilon, is the only one that can be odd,
and the drawer of it is the bye.
_Ly_. Shall I extol your intelligence, or would you rather I explained to
you my own poor idea, which differs?
_Her_. The latter, of course, though I cannot conceive how you can
reasonably differ.
_Ly_. You have gone on the assumption that the letters are taken in
alphabetical order, until at a particular one the number of competitors
runs short; and I grant you it may be done so at Olympia. But suppose we
were to pick out five letters at random, say chi, sigma, zeta, kappa,
theta, and duplicate the other four on the lots for eight competitors,
but put a single zeta on the ninth, which we meant to indicate the
bye--what then would you do if you came on the zeta first? How can you
tell that its holder is the bye till you have been all round and found no
counterpart to it? for you could not tell by the alphabetical order, as
at Olympia.
_Her_. A difficult question.
_Ly_. Look at the same thing another way. Suppose we put no letters
at all on the lots, but, instead of them, signs and marks such as the
Egyptians use for letters, men with dogs' or lions' heads. Or no, those
are rather too strange; let us avoid hybrids, and put down simple forms,
as well as our draughtsmanship will allow--men on two lots, horses on
two, a pair of cocks, a pair of dogs, and let a lion be the mark of the
ninth. Now, if you hit upon the lion at the first try, how can you tell
that this is the bye-maker, until you have gone all round and seen
whether any one else has a lion to match?
_Her_. Your question is too much for me.
_Ly_. No wonder; there is no plausible answer. Consequently if we
mean to find either the man who has the sacred cup, or the bye, or our
best guide to the famous city of Corinth, we must absolutely go to and
examine them all, trying them carefully, stripping and comparing them;
the truth will be hard enough to find, even so. If I am to take any one's
advice upon the right philosophy to choose, I insist upon his knowing
what they all say; every one else I disqualify; I will not trust him
while there is one philosophy he is unacquainted with; that one may
possibly be the best of all. If some one were to produce a handsome man,
and state that he was the handsomest of mankind, we should not accept
that, unless we knew he had seen all men; very likely his man is
handsome, but whether the handsomest, he has no means of knowing without
seeing all. Now we are looking not simply for beauty, but for the
greatest beauty, and if we miss that, we shall account ourselves no
further than we were; we shall not be content with chancing upon some
sort of beauty; we are in search of a definite thing, the supreme beauty,
which must necessarily be _one_.
_Her_. True.
_Ly_. Well then, can you name me a man who has tried every road in
philosophy? one who, knowing the doctrine of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle,
Chrysippus, Epicurus, and the rest, has ended by selecting one out of all
these roads, because he has proved it genuine, and had found it by
experience to be the only one that led straight to Happiness? If we
can meet with such a man, we are at the end of our troubles.
_Her_. Alas, that is no easy matter.
_Ly_. What shall we do, then? I do not think we ought to despair, in the
momentary absence of such a guide. Perhaps the best and safest plan
of all is to set to work oneself, go through every system, and carefully
examine the various doctrines.
_Her_. That is what seems to be indicated. I am afraid, though, there is
an obstacle in what you said just now: it is not easy, when you have
committed yourself with a spread of canvas to the wind, to get home
again. How can a man try all the roads, when, as you said, he will be
unable to escape from the first of them?
_Ly_. My notion is to copy Theseus, get dame Ariadne to give us a skein,
and go into one labyrinth after another, with the certainty of getting out
by winding it up.
_Her_. Who is to be our Ariadne? Where shall we find the skein?
_Ly_. Never despair; I fancy I have found something to hold on to and
escape.
_Her_. And what is that?
_Ly_. It is not original; I borrow it from one of the wise men: 'Be sober
and doubt all things,' says he. If we do not believe everything we are
told, but behave like jurymen who suspend judgement till they have heard
the other side, we may have no difficulty in getting out of the
labyrinths.
_Her_. A good plan; let us try it.
_Ly_. Very well, which shall we start with? However, that will make no
difference; we may begin with whomsoever we fancy, Pythagoras, say; how
long shall we allow for learning the whole of Pythagoreanism? and do
not omit the five years of silence; including those, I suppose thirty
altogether will do; or, if you do not like that, still we cannot put it
lower than twenty.
_Her_. Put it at that.
_Ly_. Plato will come next with as many more, and then Aristotle cannot do
with less.
_Her_. No.
_Ly_. As to Chrysippus, I need not ask you; you have told me already that
forty is barely enough.
_Her_. That is so.
_Ly_. And we have still Epicurus and the others. I am not taking high
figures, either, as you will see if you reflect upon the number of
octogenarian Stoics, Epicureans, and Platonists who confess that they
have not yet completely mastered their own systems. Or, if they did not
confess it, at any rate Chrysippus, Aristotle, and Plato would for them;
still more Socrates, who is as good as they; he used to proclaim to all
comers that, so far from knowing all, he knew nothing whatever, except
the one fact of his own ignorance. Well, let us add up. Twenty years we
gave Pythagoras, the same to Plato, and so to the others. What will the
total come to, if we assume only ten schools?
_Her_. Over two hundred years.
_Ly_. Shall we deduct a quarter of that, and say a hundred and fifty
will do? or can we halve it?
_Her_. You must decide about that; but I see that, at the best, it
will be but few who will get through the course, though they begin
philosophy and life together.
_Ly_. In that case, what are we to do? Must we withdraw our previous
admission, that no one can choose the best out of many without trying
all? We thought selection without experiment a method of inquiry
savouring more of divination than of judgement, did we not?
_Her_. Yes.
_Ly_. Without such longevity, then, it is absolutely impossible for
us to complete the series--experiment, selection, philosophy, Happiness.
Yet anything short of that is a mere game of blindman's-buff; whatever we
knock against and get hold of we shall be taking for the thing we want,
because the truth is hidden from us. Even if a mere piece of luck brings
us straight to it, we shall have no grounded conviction of our success;
there are so many similar objects, all claiming to be the real thing.
_Her_. Ah, Lycinus, your arguments seem to me more or less logical,
but--but--to be frank with you--I hate to hear you going through them and
wasting your acuteness. I suspect it was in an evil hour that I came out
to-day and met you; my hopes were almost in my grasp; and now here are
you plunging me into a slough of despond with your demonstrations; truth
is undiscoverable, if the search needs so many years.
_Ly_. My dear friend, it would be much fairer to blame your parents,
Menecrates and whatever your mother's name may have been--or indeed to go
still further back to human nature. Why did not they make you a Tithonus
for years and durability? instead of which, they limited you like other
men to a century at the outside. As for me, I have only been helping you
to deduce results.
_Her_. No, no; it is just your way; you want to crow over me; you
detest philosophy--I cannot tell why--and poke fun at philosophers.
_Ly_. Hermotimus, I cannot show what truth is, so well as wise people like
you and your professor; but one thing I do know about it, and that is that
it is not pleasant to the ear; falsehood is far more esteemed; it is
prettier, and therefore pleasanter; while Truth, conscious of its purity,
blurts out downright remarks, and offends people. Here is a case of it:
even you are offended with me for having discovered (with your assistance)
how this matter really stands, and shown that our common object is hard of
attainment. Suppose you had been in love with a statue and hoped to win
it, under the impression that it was human, and I had realized that it was
only bronze or marble, and given you a friendly warning that your passion
was hopeless--you might just as well have thought I was your enemy then,
because I would not leave you a prey to extravagant and impracticable
delusions.
_Her_. Well, well; are we to give up philosophy, then, and idle our
lives away like the common herd?
_Ly_. What have I said to justify that? My point is not that we are
to give up philosophy, but this: whereas we are to pursue philosophy, and
whereas there are many roads, each professing to lead to philosophy and
Virtue, and whereas it is uncertain which of these is the true road,
therefore the selection shall be made with care. Now we resolved that it
was impossible out of many offers to choose the best, unless a man should
try all in turn; and then the process of trial was found to be long. What
do _you_ propose?--It is the old question again. To follow and join
philosophic forces with whomsoever you first fall in with, and let him
thank Fortune for his proselyte?
_Her_. What is the good of answering your questions? You say no one
can judge for himself, unless he can devote the life of a phoenix to
going round experimenting; and on the other hand you refuse to trust
either previous experience or the multitude of favourable testimony.
_Ly_. Where is your multitude, with knowledge and experience _of all_?
Never mind the multitude; one man who answers the description will do for
me. But if you mean the people who do not know, their mere numbers will
never persuade me, as long as they pronounce upon all from knowledge of,
at the most, one.
_Her_. Are you the only man who has found the truth, and are all the
people who go in for philosophy fools?
_Ly_. You wrong me, Hermotimus, when you imply that I put myself
above other people, or rank myself at all with those who know; you forget
what I said; I never claimed to know the truth better than others, only
confessed that I was as ignorant of it as every one else.
_Her_. Well, but, Lycinus, it may be all very well to insist on going the
round, testing the various statements, and eschewing any other method of
choice; but it is ridiculous to spend so many years on each experiment, as
though there were no such thing as judging from samples. That device seems
to me quite simple, and economical of time. There is a story that some
sculptor, Phidias, I think, seeing a single claw, calculated from it the
size of the lion, if it were modelled proportionally. So, if some one were
to let you see a man's hand, keeping the rest of his body concealed, you
would know at once that what was behind was a man, without seeing his
whole body. Well, it is easy to find out in a few hours the essential
points of the various doctrines, and, for selecting the best, these will
suffice, without any of your scrupulous exacting investigation.
_Ly_. Upon my word, how confident you are in your faculty of divining the
whole from the parts! and yet I remember being told just the
opposite--that knowledge of the whole includes that of the parts, but not
vice versa. Well, but tell me; when Phidias saw the claw, would he ever
have known it for a lion's, if he had never seen a lion? Could you have
said the hand was a man's, if you had never known or seen a man? Why are
you dumb? Let me make the only possible answer for you--that you could
_not_; I am afraid Phidias has modelled his lion all for nothing;
for it proves to be neither here nor there. What resemblance is there?
What enabled you and Phidias to recognize the parts was just your
knowledge of the wholes--the lion and the man. But in philosophy--the
Stoic, for instance--how will the part reveal the other parts to you, or
how can you conclude that they are beautiful? You do not know the whole
to which the parts belong.
Then you say it is easy to hear in a few hours the essentials of all
philosophy--meaning, I suppose, their principles and ends, their accounts
of God and the soul, their views on the material and the immaterial,
their respective identification of pleasure or goodness with the
desirable and the Happy; well, it is easy--it is quite a trifle--to
deliver an opinion after such a hearing; but really to _know_ where
the truth lies will be work, I suspect, not for a few hours, but for a
good many days. If not, what can have induced them to enlarge on these
rudiments to the tune of a hundred or a thousand volumes apiece? I
imagine they only wanted to establish the truth of those few points which
you thought so easy and intelligible. If you refuse to spend your time on
a conscientious selection, after personal examination of each and all, in
sum and in detail, it seems to me you will still want your soothsayer to
choose the best for you. It would be a fine short cut, with no
meanderings or wastings of time, if you sent for him, listened to the
summaries, and killed a victim at the end of each; by indicating in its
liver which is the philosophy for you, the God would save you a pack of
troubles.
Or, if you like, I can suggest a still simpler way; you need not shed all
this blood in sacrifice to any God, nor employ an expensive priest; put
into an urn a set of tablets, each marked with a philosopher's name, and
tell a boy (he must be quite young, and his parents both be living) to go
to the urn and pick out whichever tablet his hand first touches; and live
a philosopher ever after, of the school which then comes out triumphant.
_Her_. This is buffoonery, Lycinus; I should not have expected it of you.
Now tell me, did you ever buy wine? in person, I mean.
_Ly_. Many a time.
_Her_. Well, did you go to every wine vault in town, one after another,
tasting and comparing?
_Ly_. Certainly not.
_Her_. No; as soon as you find good sound stuff, you have only to get it
sent home.
_Ly_. To be sure.
_Her_. And from that little taste you could have answered for the quality
of the whole?
_Ly_. Yes.
_Her_. Now suppose you had gone to all the wine-merchants and said: I want
to buy a pint of wine; I must ask you, gentlemen, to let me drink the
whole of the cask which each of you has on tap; after that exhaustive
sampling, I shall know which of you keeps the best wine, and is the man
for my money. If you had talked like that, they might have laughed at
you, and, if you persisted in worrying them, have tried how you liked
water.
_Ly_. Yes; it would be no more than my deserts.
_Her_. Apply this to philosophy. What need to drink the whole cask,
when you can judge the quality of the whole from one little taste?
_Ly_. What an adept at evasion you are, Hermotimus! How you slip
through one's fingers! However, it is all the better this time; you
fancied yourself out, but you have flopped into the net again.
_Her_. What do you mean?
_Ly_. You take a thing whose nature is self-evident and universally
admitted, like wine, and argue from it to perfectly unlike things, whose
nature is obscure and generally debated. In fact I cannot tell what
analogy you find between philosophy and wine; there is just one, indeed:
philosophers and wine-merchants both sell their wares, mostly resorting
to adulteration, fraud, and false measures, in the process. But let us
look into your real meaning. You say all the wine in a cask is of the
same quality--which is perfectly reasonable; further, that any one who
draws and tastes quite a small quantity will know at once the quality of
the whole--of which the same may be said; I should never have thought of
objecting. But mark what comes now: do philosophy and its professors
(your own, for instance) give you every day the same remarks on the same
subjects, or do they vary them? They vary them a great deal, friend; you
would never have stuck to your master through your twenty years'
wandering--quite a philosophic Odyssey--if he had always said the same
thing; one hearing would have been enough.
_Her_. So it would.
_Ly_. How could you have known the whole of his doctrines from the
first taste, then? They were not homogeneous, like the wine; novelty
to-day, and novelty to-morrow on the top of it. Consequently, dear friend,
short of drinking the whole cask, you might soak to no purpose;
Providence seems to me to have hidden the philosophic Good right at the
bottom, underneath the lees. So you will have to drain it dry, or you
will never get to that nectar for which I know you have so long thirsted.
According to your idea, it has such virtue that, could you once taste it
and swallow the very least drop, you would straightway have perfect
wisdom; so they say the Delphian prophetess is inspired by one draught of
the sacred spring with answers for those who consult the oracle. But it
seems not to be so; you have drunk more than half the cask; yet you told
me you were only beginning yet.
Now see whether this is not a better analogy. You shall keep your
merchant, and your cask; but the contents of the latter are not to be
wine, but assorted seeds. On the top is wheat, next beans, then barley,
below that lentils, then peas--and other kinds yet. You go to buy seeds,
and he takes some wheat out of that layer, and puts it in your hand as a
sample; now, could you tell by looking at that whether the peas were
Sound, the lentils tender, and the beans full?
_Her_. Impossible.
_Ly_. No more can you tell the quality of a philosophy from the first
statements of its professor; it is not uniform, like the wine to which you
compared it, claiming that it must resemble the sample glass; it is
heterogeneous, and it had better not be cursorily tested. If you buy bad
wine, the loss is limited to a few pence; but to rot with the common herd
(in your own words) is not so light a loss. Moreover, your man who wants
to drink up the cask as a preliminary to buying a pint will injure the
merchant, with his dubious sampling; but philosophy knows no such danger;
you may drink your fill, but this cask grows no emptier, and its owner
suffers no loss. It is cut and come again here; we have the converse of
the Danaids' cask; that would not hold what was put into it; it ran
straight through; but here, the more you take away, the more remains.
And I have another similar remark to make about these specimen drops of
philosophy. Do not fancy I am libelling it, if I say it is like hemlock,
aconite, or other deadly poison. Those too, though they have death in
them, will not kill if a man scrapes off the tiniest particle with the
edge of his nail and tastes it; if they are not taken in the right
quantity, the right manner, and the right vehicle, the taker will not
die; you were wrong in claiming that the least possible quantity is
enough to base a generalization on.
_Her_. Oh, have it your own way, Lycinus. Well then, we have got to live a
hundred years, and go through all this trouble? There is no other road to
philosophy?
_Ly_. No, none; and we need not complain; as you very truly said, _ars
longa, vita brevis_. But I do not know what has come over you; you now
make a grievance of it, if you cannot before set of sun develop into a
Chrysippus, a Plato, a Pythagoras.
_Her_. You trap me, and drive me into a corner, Lycinus; yet I never
provoked you; it is all envy, I know, because I have made some progress
in my studies, whereas you have neglected yourself, when you were old
enough to know better.
_Ly_. Seest, then, thy true course? never mind me, but leave me as a
lunatic to my follies, and you go on your way and accomplish what you
have intended all this time.
_Her_. But you are so masterful, you will not let me make a choice, till I
have proved all.
_Ly_. Why, I confess, you will never get me to budge from that. But when
you call me masterful, it seems to me you blame the blameless, as the poet
says; for I am myself being dragged along by reason, until you bring up
some other reason to release me from durance. And here is reason about to
talk more masterfully still, you will see; but I suppose you will
exonerate it, and blame me.
_Her_. What can it be? I am surprised to hear it still has anything in
reserve.
_Ly_. It says that seeing and going through all philosophies will not
suffice, if you want to choose the best of them; the most important
qualification is still missing.
_Her_. Indeed? Which?
_Ly_. Why (bear with me), a critical investigating faculty, mental acumen,
intellectual precision and independence equal to the occasion; without
this, the completest inspection will be useless. Reason insists that the
owner of it must further be allowed ample time; he will collect the rival
candidates together, and make his choice with long, lingering, repeated
deliberation; he will give no heed to the candidate's age, appearance, or
repute for wisdom, but perform his functions like the Areopagites, who
judge in the darkness of night, so that they must regard not the pleaders,
but the pleadings. Then and not till then will you be able to make a sound
choice and live a philosopher.
_Her_. Live? an after life, then. No mortal span will meet your demands;
let me see: go the whole round, examine each with care, on that
examination form a judgement, on that judgement make a choice, on that
choice be a philosopher; so and no otherwise you say the truth may be
found.
_Ly_. I hardly dare tell you--even that is not exhaustive; I am afraid,
after all, the solid basis we thought we had found was imaginary. You know
how fishermen often let down their nets, feel a weight, and pull them up
expecting a great haul; when they have got them up with much toil, behold,
a stone, or an old pot full of sand. I fear our catch is one of those.
_Her_. I don't know what this particular net may be; your nets are all
round me, anyhow.
_Ly_. Well, try and get through; providentially, you are as good a
swimmer as can be. Now, this is it: granted that we go all round
experimenting, and get it done at last, too, I do not believe we shall
have solved the elementary question, whether _any_ of them has the
much-desired; perhaps they are all wrong together.
_Her_. Oh, come now! not one of _them_ right either?
_Ly_. I cannot tell. Do you think it impossible they may all be deluded,
and the truth be something which none of them has yet found?
_Her_. How can it possibly be?
_Ly_. This way: take a correct number, twenty; suppose, I mean, a man has
twenty beans in his closed hand, and asks ten different persons to guess
the number; they guess seven, five, thirty, ten, fifteen--various numbers,
in short. It is possible, I suppose, that one may be right?
_Her_. Yes.
_Ly_. It is not impossible, however, that they may all guess different
incorrect numbers, and not one of them suggest twenty beans. What say you?
_Her_. It is not impossible.
_Ly_. In the same way, all philosophers are investigating the nature of
Happiness; they get different answers one Pleasure, another Goodness,
and so through the list. It is probable that Happiness _is_ one of these;
but it is also not improbable that it is something else altogether. We
seem to have reversed the proper procedure, and hurried on to the end
before we had found the beginning I suppose we ought first to have
ascertained that the truth has actually been discovered, and that some
philosopher or other has it, and only then to have gone on to the next
question, _which_ of them is to be believed.
_Her_. So that, even if we go all through all philosophy, we shall have no
certainty of finding the truth even then; that is what you say.
_Ly_. Please, please do not ask _me_; once more, apply to reason itself.
Its answer will perhaps be that there can be no certainty yet--as long as
we cannot be sure that it is one or other of the things they say it is.
_Her_. Then, according to you, we shall never finish our quest nor
be philosophers, but have to give it up and live the life of laymen. What
you say amounts to that: philosophy is impossible and inaccessible to a
mere mortal; for you expect the aspirant first to choose the best
philosophy; and you considered that the only guarantee of such choice's
being correct was to go through all philosophy before choosing the
truest. Then in reckoning the number of years required by each you
spurned all limits, extended the thing to several generations, and made
out the quest of truth too long for the individual life; and now you
crown all by proving success doubtful even apart from all that; you say
it is uncertain whether the philosophers have ever found truth at all.
_Ly_. Could you state on oath that they have?
_Her_. Not on oath, no.
_Ly_. And yet there is much that I have intentionally spared you, though
it merits careful examination too.
_Her_. For instance?
_Ly_. Is it not said that, among the professed Stoics, Platonists, and
Epicureans, some do know their respective doctrines, and some do not
(without prejudice to their general respectability)?
_Her_. That is true.
_Ly_. Well, don't you think it will be a troublesome business to
distinguish the first, and know them from the ignorant professors?
_Her_. Very.
_Ly_. So, if you are to recognize the best of the Stoics, you will have to
go to most, if not all, of them, make trial, and appoint the best your
teacher, first going through a course of training to provide you with the
appropriate critical faculty; otherwise you might mistakenly prefer the
wrong one. Now reflect on the additional time this will mean; I purposely
left it out of account, because I was afraid you might be angry; all the
same, it is the most important and necessary thing of all in questions
like this--so uncertain and dubious, I mean. For the discovery of truth,
your one and only sure or well-founded hope is the possession of this
power: you _must_ be able to judge and sift truth from falsehood; you must
have the assayer's sense for sound and true or forged coin; if you could
have come to your examination of doctrines equipped with a technical skill
like that, I should have nothing to say; but without it there is nothing
to prevent their severally leading you by the nose; you will follow a
dangled bunch of carrots like a donkey; or, better still, you will be
water spilt on a table, trained whichever way one chooses with a
finger-tip; or again, a reed growing on a river's bank, bending to every
breath, however gentle the breeze that shakes it in its passage.
If you could find a teacher, now, who understood demonstration and
controversial method, and would impart his knowledge to you, you would be
quit of your troubles; the best and the true would straightway be
revealed to you, at the bidding of this art of demonstration, while
falsehood would stand convicted; you would make your choice with
confidence; judgement would be followed by philosophy; you would reach
your long-desired Happiness, and live in its company, which sums up all
good things.
_Her_. Thank you, Lycinus; that is a much better hearing; there is
more than a glimpse of hope in that. We must surely look for a man of
that sort, to give us discernment, judgement, and, above all, the power
of demonstration; then all will be easy and clear, and not too long. I am
grateful to you already for thinking of this short and excellent plan.
_Ly_. Ah, no, I cannot fairly claim gratitude yet. I have not discovered
or revealed anything that will bring you nearer your hope; on the
contrary, we are further off than ever; it is a case of much cry and
little wool.
_Her_. Bird of ill omen, pessimist, explain yourself.
_Ly_. Why, my friend, even if we find some one who claims to know this art
of demonstration, and is willing to impart it, we shall surely not take
his word for it straight off; we shall look about for another man to
resolve us whether the first is telling the truth. Finding number two, we
shall still be uncertain whether our guarantor really knows the difference
between a good judge and a bad, and shall need a number three to guarantee
number two; for how can we possibly know ourselves how to select the best
judge? You see how far this must go; the thing is unending; its nature
does not allow us to draw the line and put a stop to it; for you will
observe that all the demonstrations that can possibly be thought of are
themselves unfounded and open to dispute; most of them struggle to
establish their certainty by appealing to facts as questionable as
themselves; and the rest produce certain truisms with which they compare,
quite illegitimately, the most speculative theories, and then say they
have demonstrated the latter: our eyes tell us there are altars to the
Gods; therefore there must be Gods; that is the sort of thing.
_Her_. How unkindly you treat me, Lycinus, turning my treasure into
ashes; I suppose all these years are to have been lost labour.
_Ly_. At least your chagrin will be considerably lessened by the
thought that you are not alone in your disappointment; practically all
who pursue philosophy do no more than disquiet themselves in vain. Who
could conceivably go through all the stages I have rehearsed? you admit
the impossibility yourself. As to your present mood, it is that of the
man who cries and curses his luck because he cannot climb the sky, or
plunge into the depths of the sea at Sicily and come up at Cyprus, or
soar on wings and fly within the day from Greece to India; what is
responsible for his discontent is his basing of hopes on a dream-vision
or his own wild fancy, without ever asking whether his aspirations were
realizable or consistent with humanity. You too, my friend, have been
having a long and marvellous dream; and now reason has stuck a pin into
you and startled you out of your sleep; your eyes are only half open yet,
you are reluctant to shake off a sleep which has shown you such fair
visions, and so you scold. It is just the condition of the day-dreamer;
he is rolling in gold, digging up treasure, sitting on his throne, or
somehow at the summit of bliss; for dame _How-I-wish_ is a lavish
facile Goddess, that will never turn a deaf ear to her votary, though he
have a mind to fly, or change statures with Colossus, or strike a gold-
reef; well, in the middle of all this, in comes his servant with some
every-day question, wanting to know where he is to get bread, or what he
shall say to the landlord, tired of waiting for his rent; and then he
flies into a temper, as though the intrusive questioner had robbed him of
all his bliss, and is ready to bite the poor fellow's nose off.
As you love me, do not treat me like that. I see you digging up treasure,
spreading your wings, nursing extravagant ideas, indulging impossible
hopes; and I love you too well to leave you to the company of a life-long
dream--a pleasant one, if you will, but yet a dream; I beseech you to get
up and take to some every-day business, such as may direct the rest of
your life's course by common sense. Your acts and your thoughts up to now
have been no more than Centaurs, Chimeras, Gorgons, or what else is
figured by dreams and poets and painters, chartered libertines all, who
reek not of what has been or may be. Yet the common folk believe them,
bewitched by tale and picture just because they are strange and monstrous.
I fancy you hearing from some teller of tales how there is a certain lady
of perfect beauty, beyond the Graces themselves or the Heavenly
Aphrodite, and then, without ever an inquiry whether his tale is true,
and such a person to be found on earth, falling straight in love with
her, like Medea in the story enamoured of a dream-Jason. And what most
drew you on to love, you and the others who worship the same phantom,
was, if I am not mistaken, the consistent way in which the inventor of
the lady added to his picture, when once he had got your ear. That was
the only thing you all looked to, with that he turned you about as he
would, having got his first hold upon you, averring that he was leading
you the straight way to your beloved. After the first step, you see, all
was easy; none of you ever looked round when he came to the entrance, and
inquired whether it was the right one, or whether he had accidentally
taken the wrong; no, you all followed in your predecessors' footsteps,
like sheep after the bell-wether, whereas the right thing was to decide
at the entrance whether you should go in.
Perhaps an illustration will make my meaning clearer: when one of those
audacious poets affirms that there was once a three-headed and six-handed
man, if you accept that quietly without questioning its possibility, he
will proceed to fill in the picture consistently--six eyes and ears,
three voices talking at once, three mouths eating, and thirty fingers
instead of our poor ten all told; if he has to fight, three of his hands
will have a buckler, wicker targe, or shield apiece, while of the other
three one swings an axe, another hurls a spear, and the third wields a
sword. It is too late to carp at these details, when they come; they are
consistent with the beginning; it was about that that the question ought
to have been raised whether it was to be accepted and passed as true.
Once grant that, and the rest comes flooding in, irresistible, hardly now
susceptible of doubt, because it is consistent and accordant with your
initial admissions. That is just your case; your love-yearning would not
allow you to look into the facts at each entrance, and so you are dragged
on by consistency; it never occurs to you that a thing may be self-
consistent and yet false; if a man says twice five is seven, and you take
his word for it without checking the sum, he will naturally deduce that
four times five is fourteen, and so on _ad libitum_. This is the way
that weird geometry proceeds: it sets before beginners certain strange
assumptions, and insists on their granting the existence of inconceivable
things, such as points having no parts, lines without breadth, and so on,
builds on these rotten foundations a superstructure equally rotten, and
pretends to go on to a demonstration which is true, though it starts from
premisses which are false.
Just so you, when you have granted the principles of any school, believe
in the deductions from them, and take their consistency, false as it is,
for a guarantee of truth. Then with some of you, hope travels through,
and you die before you have seen the truth and detected your deceivers,
while the rest, disillusioned too late, will not turn back for shame:
what, confess at their years that they have been abused with toys all
this time? so they hold on desperately, putting the best face upon it and
making all the converts they can, to have the consolation of good company
in their deception; they are well aware that to speak out is to sacrifice
the respect and superiority and honour they are accustomed to; so they
will not do it if it may be helped, knowing the height from which they
will fall to the common level. Just a few are found with the courage to
say they were deluded, and warn other aspirants. Meeting such a one, call
him a good man, a true and an honest; nay, call him philosopher, if you
will; to my mind, the name is his or no one's; the rest either have no
knowledge of the truth, though they think they have, or else have
knowledge and hide it, shamefaced cowards clinging to reputation.
But now for goodness' sake let us drop all this, cover it up with an
amnesty, and let it be as if it had not been said; let us, assume that
the Stoic philosophy, and no other, is correct; then we can examine
whether it is practicable and possible, or its disciples wasting their
pains; it makes wonderful promises, I am told, about the Happiness in
store for those who reach the summit; for none but they shall enter into
full possession of the true Good. The next point you must help me with--
whether you have ever met such a Stoic, such a pattern of Stoicism, as to
be unconscious of pain, untempted by pleasure, free from wrath, superior
to envy, contemptuous of wealth, and, in one word, Happy; such should the
example and model of the Virtuous life be; for any one who falls short in
the slightest degree, even though he is better than other men at all
points, is not complete, and in that case not yet Happy.
_Her_. I never saw such a man.
_Ly_. I am glad you do not palter with the truth. But what are your hopes
in pursuing philosophy, then? You see that neither your own teacher, nor
his, nor his again, and so on to the tenth generation, has been absolutely
wise and so attained Happiness. It will not serve you to say that it is
enough to get near Happiness; that is no good; a person on the doorstep is
just as much outside and in the air as another a long way off, though with
the difference that the former is tantalized by a nearer view. So it is to
get into the neighbourhood of Happiness--I will grant you so much--that
you toil like this, wearing yourself away, letting this great portion of
your life slip from you, while you are sunk in dullness and wakeful
weariness; and you are to go on with it for twenty more years at the
least, you tell me, to take your place when you are eighty--always
assuming some one to assure you that length of days--in the ranks of the
not yet Happy. Or perhaps you reckon on being the exception; you are to
crown your pursuit by attaining what many a good man before you, swifter
far, has pursued and never overtaken.
Well, overtake it, if that is your plan, grasp it and have it whole, this
something, mysterious to me, of which the possession is sufficient reward
for such toils; this something which I wonder how long you will have the
enjoyment of, old man that you will be, past all pleasure, with one foot
in the grave; ah, but perhaps, like a brave soul, you are getting ready
for another life, that you may spend it the better when you come to it,
having learned how to live: as though one should take so long preparing
and elaborating a superlative dinner that he fainted with hunger and
exhaustion!
However, there is another thing I do not think you have observed: Virtue
is manifested, of course, in action, in doing what is just and wise and
manly; but you--and when I say you, I mean the most advanced
philosophers--you do not seek these things and ensue them, but spend the
greater part of your life conning over miserable sentences and
demonstrations and problems; it is the man who does best at these that
you hail a glorious victor. And I believe that is why you admire this
experienced old professor of yours: he nonplusses his associates, knows
how to put crafty questions and inveigle you into pitfalls; so you pay no
attention to the fruit--which consists in action--, but are extremely
busy with the husks, and smother each other with the leaves in your
debates; come now, Hermotimus, what else are you about from morning to
night?
_Her_. Nothing; that is what it comes to.
_Ly_. Is it wronging you to say that you hunt the shadow or the snake's
dead slough, and neglect the solid body or the creeping thing itself? You
are no better than a man pouring water into a mortar and braying it with
an iron pestle; he thinks he is doing a necessary useful job, whereas, let
him bray till all's blue (excuse the slang), the water is as much water as
ever it was.
And here let me ask you whether, putting aside his discourse, you would
choose to resemble your master, and be as passionate, as sordid, as
quarrelsome, ay, and as addicted to pleasure (though that trait of his is
not generally known). Why no answer, Hermotimus? Shall I tell you a plea
for philosophy which I lately heard? It was from the mouth of an old, old
man, who has quite a company of young disciples. He was angrily demanding
his fees from one of these; they were long overdue, he said; the day
stated in the agreement was the first of the month, and it was now the
fifteenth.
The youth's uncle was there, a rustic person without any notion of your
refinements; and by way of stilling the storm, _Come, come, sir_, says he,
_you need not make such a fuss because we have bought words of you and not
yet settled the bill. As to what you have sold us, you have got it still;
your stock of learning is none the less; and in what I really sent the boy
to you for, you have not improved him a bit; he has carried off and
seduced neighbour Echecrates's daughter, and there would have been an
action for assault, only Echecrates is a poor man; but the prank cost me a
couple of hundred. And the other day he struck his mother; she had tried
to stop him when he was smuggling wine out of the house, for one of his
club-dinners, I suppose. As to temper and conceit and impudence and brass
and lying, he was not half so bad twelve months ago as he is now. That is
where I should have liked him to profit by your teaching; and we could
have done, without his knowing the stuff he reels of at table every day:
'a crocodile [Footnote: See _Puzzles_ in Notes.] seized hold of a baby,'
says he, 'and promised to give it back if its father could answer'--the
Lord knows what; or how, 'day [Footnote: See _Puzzles_ in Notes.] being,
night cannot be'; and sometimes his worship twists round what we say
somehow or other, till there we are with horns [Footnote: See _Puzzles_ in
Notes.] on our heads! We just laugh at it--most of all when he stuffs up
his ears and repeats to himself what he calls temperaments and conditions
and conceptions and impressions, and a lot more like that. And he tells us
God is not in heaven, but goes about in everything, wood and stone and
animals--the meanest of them, too; and if his mother asks him why he talks
such stuff, he laughs at her and says if once he gets the 'stuff' pat off,
there will be nothing to prevent him from being the only rich man, the
only king, and counting every one else slaves and offscourings._
When he had finished, mark the reverend philosopher's answer. _You should
consider_, he said, _that if he had never come to me, he would have
behaved far worse--very possibly have come to the gallows. As it is,
philosophy and the respect he has for it have been a check upon him, so
that you find he keeps within bounds and is not quite unbearable; the
philosophic system and name tutor him with their presence, and the
thought of disgracing them shames him. I should be quite justified in
taking your money, if not for any positive improvement I have effected,
yet for the abstentions due to his respect for philosophy; the very
nurses will tell you as much: children should go to school, because, even
if they are not old enough to learn, they will at least be out of
mischief there. My conscience is quite easy about him; if you like to
select any of your friends who is acquainted with Stoicism and bring him
here to-morrow, you shall see how the boy can question and answer, how
much he has learnt, how many books he has read on axioms, syllogisms,
conceptions, duty, and all sorts of subjects. As for his hitting his
mother or seducing girls, what have I to do with that? am I his keeper?_
A dignified defence of philosophy for an old man! Perhaps _you_ will say
too that it is a good enough reason for pursuing it, if it will keep us
from worse employments. Were our original expectations from philosophy
at all of a different nature, by the way? did they contemplate anything
beyond a more decent behaviour than the average? Why this obstinate
silence?
_Her_. Oh, why but that I could cry like a baby? It cuts me to the
heart, it is all so true; it is too much for me, when I think of my
wretched, wasted years--paying all that money for my own labour, too! I
am sober again after a debauch, I see what the object of my maudlin
affection is like, and what it has brought upon me.
_Ly_. No need for tears, dear fellow; that is a very sensible fable
of Aesop's. A man sat on the shore and counted the waves breaking;
missing count, he was excessively annoyed. But the fox came up and said
to him: 'Why vex yourself, good sir, over the past ones? you should let
them go, and begin counting afresh.' So you, since this is your mind, had
better reconcile yourself now to living like an ordinary man; you will
give up your extravagant haughty hopes and put yourself on a level with
the commonalty; if you are sensible, you will not be ashamed to unlearn
in your old age, and change your course for a better.
Now I beg you not to fancy that I have said all this as an anti-Stoic,
moved by any special dislike of your school; my arguments hold against
all schools. I should have said just the same if you had chosen Plato or
Aristotle, and condemned the others unheard. But, as Stoicism was your
choice, the argument has seemed to be aimed at that, though it had no
such special application.
_Her_. You are quite right. And now I will be off to metamorphose
myself. When we next meet, there will be no long, shaggy beard, no
artificial composure; I shall be natural, as a gentleman should. I may go
as far as a fashionable coat, by way of publishing my renunciation of
nonsense. I only wish there were an emetic that would purge out every
doctrine they have instilled into me; I assure you, if I could reverse
Chrysippus's plan with the hellebore, and drink forgetfulness, not of the
world but of Stoicism, I would not think twice about it. Well, Lycinus, I
owe you a debt indeed; I was being swept along in a rough turbid torrent,
unresisting, drifting with the stream; when lo, you stood there and
fished me out, a true _deus ex machina_. I have good enough reason,
I think, to shave my head like the people who get clear off from a wreck;
for I am to make votive offerings to-day for the dispersion of that thick
cloud which was over my eyes. Henceforth, if I meet a philosopher on my
walks (and it will not be with my will), I shall turn aside and avoid him
as I would a mad dog.
HERODOTUS AND AETION
I devoutly wish that Herodotus's other characteristics were imitable; not
all of them, of course--that is past praying for--, but any one of them:
the agreeable style, the constructive skill, the native charm of his
Ionic, the sententious wealth, or any of a thousand beauties which he
combined into one whole, to the despair of imitators. But there is one
thing--the use he made of his writings, and the speed with which he
attained the respect of all Greece; from that you, or I, or any one else,
might take a hint. As soon as he had sailed from his Carian home for
Greece, he concentrated his thoughts on the quickest and easiest method
of winning a brilliant reputation for himself and his works. He might
have gone the round, and read them successively at Athens, Corinth,
Argos, and Sparta; but that would be a long toilsome business, he
thought, with no end to it; so he would not do it in detail, collecting
his recognition by degrees, and scraping it together little by little;
his idea was, if possible, to catch all Greece together. The great
Olympic Games were at hand, and Herodotus bethought him that here was the
very occasion on which his heart was set. He seized the moment when the
gathering was at its fullest, and every city had sent the flower of its
citizens; then he appeared in the temple hall, bent not on sight-seeing,
but on bidding for an Olympic victory of his own; he recited his
_Histories_, and bewitched his hearers; nothing would do but each
book must be named after one of the Muses, to whose number they
corresponded.
He was straightway known to all, better far than the Olympic winners.
There was no man who had not heard his name; they had listened to him at
Olympia, or they were told of him by those who had been there; he had
only to appear, and fingers were pointing at him: 'There is the great
Herodotus, who wrote the Persian War in Ionic, and celebrated our
victories.' That was what he made out of his _Histories_; a single
meeting sufficed, and he had the general unanimous acclamation of all
Greece; his name was proclaimed, not by a single herald; every spectator
did that for him, each in his own city.
The royal road to fame was now discovered; it was the regular practice of
many afterwards to deliver their discourses at the festival; Hippias the
rhetorician was on his own ground there; but Prodicus came from Ceos,
Anaximenes from Chios, Polus from Agrigentum; and a rapid fame it
brought, to them and many others.
However, I need not have cited ancient rhetoricians, historians, and
chroniclers like these; in quite recent times the painter Aetion is said
to have brought his picture, _Nuptials of Roxana and Alexander_, to
exhibit at Olympia; and Proxenides, High Steward of the Games on the
occasion, was so delighted with his genius that he gave him his daughter.
It must have been a very wonderful picture, I think I hear some one say,
to make the High Steward give his daughter to a stranger. Well, I have
seen it--it is now in Italy--, so I can tell you. A fair chamber, with
the bridal bed in it; Roxana seated--and a great beauty she is--with
downcast eyes, troubled by the presence of Alexander, who is standing.
Several smiling Loves; one stands behind Roxana, pulling away the veil on
her head to show her to Alexander; another obsequiously draws off her
sandal, suggesting bed-time; a third has hold of Alexander's mantle, and
is dragging him with all his might towards Roxana. The King is offering
her a garland, and by him as supporter and groom's-man is Hephaestion,
holding a lighted torch and leaning on a very lovely boy; this is
Hymenaeus, I conjecture, for there are no letters to show. On the other
side of the picture, more Loves playing among Alexander's armour; two are
carrying his spear, as porters do a heavy beam; two more grasp the
handles of the shield, tugging it along with another reclining on it,
playing king, I suppose; and then another has got into the breast-plate,
which lies hollow part upwards; he is in ambush, and will give the royal
equipage a good fright when it comes within reach.
All this is not idle fancy, on which the painter has been lavishing
needless pains; he is hinting that Alexander has also another love, in
War; though he loves Roxana, he does not forget his armour. And, by the
way, there was some extra nuptial virtue in the picture itself, outside
the realm of fancy; for it did Aetion's wooing for him. He departed with
a wedding of his own as a sort of pendant to that of Alexander;
_his_ groom's-man was the King; and the price of his marriage-piece
was a marriage.
Herodotus, then (to return to him), thought that the Olympic festival
would serve a second purpose very well--that of revealing to the Greeks a
wonderful historian who had related their victories as he had done. As
for me--and in Heaven's name do not suppose me so beside myself as to
intend any comparison between my works and his; I desire his favour too
much for that--but one experience I have in common with him. On my first
visit to Macedonia, _my_ thoughts too were busy with my best policy.
My darling wish was to be known to you all, and to exhibit my writings to
as many Macedonians as might be; I decided that it would be too great an
undertaking at such a time of year to go round in person visiting city by
city; but if I seized the occasion of this your meeting, appeared before
you all, and delivered my discourse, my aspirations, I thought, might be
realized that way.
And now here are you met together, the _elite_ of every city, the
true soul of Macedonia; the town which lodges you is the chief of all,
little enough resembling Pisa, with its crowding, its tents and hovels
and stifling heat; there is as great a difference between this audience
and that promiscuous crowd, mainly intent upon mere athletics, and
thinking of Herodotus only as a stop-gap; here we have orators,
historians, professors, the first in each kind--that is much in itself;
my arena, it seems, need not suffer from comparison with Olympia. And
though, if you insist on matching me with the Polydamases, Glaucuses, and
Milos of literature, you must think me a very presumptuous person, it is
open to you on the other hand to put them out of your thoughts
altogether; and if you strip and examine me independently, you may decide
that at least I need not be whipped. [Footnote: Cf. _Remarks addressed
to an Illiterate Book-fancier_, 9.] Considering the nature of the
contest, I may well be satisfied with that measure of success.
ZEUXIS AND ANTIOCHUS
I was lately walking home after lecturing, when a number of my audience
(you are now my friends, gentlemen, and there can be no objection to my
telling you this)--these persons, then, came to me and introduced
themselves, with the air of admiring hearers. They accompanied me a
considerable way, with such laudatory exclamations that I was reduced to
blushing at the discrepancy between praise and thing praised. Their chief
point, which they were absolutely unanimous in emphasizing, was that the
substance of my work was so fresh, so crammed with novelty. I had better
give you their actual phrases: 'How new! What paradoxes, to be sure! What
invention the man has! His ideas are quite unequalled for originality.'
They said a great deal of this sort about my fascinating lecture, as they
called it; they could have had no motive for pretending, or addressing
such flatteries to a stranger who had no independent claims on their
attention.
These commendations, to be quite frank, were very far from gratifying to
me; when at length they left me to myself, my reflections took this
course:--_So the only attraction in my work is that it is unusual, and
does not follow the beaten track; good vocabulary, orthodox composition,
insight, subtlety, Attic grace, general constructive skill--these may for
aught I know be completely wanting; else indeed they would hardly have
left them unnoticed, and approved my method only as new and startling.
Fool that I was, I did indeed guess, when they jumped up to applaud, that
novelty was part of the attraction; I knew that Homer spoke truly when he
said there is favour for the new song; but I did not see that novelty was
to have so vast a share--the whole, indeed--of the credit; I thought it
gave a sort of adventitious charm, and contributed, its part to the
success, but that the real object of commendation--what extracted the
cheers--was those other qualities. Why, I have been absurdly self-
satisfied, and come very near believing them when they called me the one
and only real Greek, and such nonsense. But behold, my gold is turned to
ashes; my fame, after all, is little different from that enjoyed by a
conjuror._
Now I should like to give you an illustration from painting. The great
Zeuxis, after he had established his artistic supremacy, seldom or never
painted such common popular subjects as Heroes, Gods, and battle-pieces;
he was always intent on novelty; he would hit upon some extravagant and
strange design, and then use it to show his mastery of the art. One of
these daring pieces of his represented a female Centaur, nursing a pair
of infant Centaur twins. There is a copy of the picture now at Athens,
taken exactly from the original. The latter is said to have been put on
ship--board for Italy with the rest of Sulla's art treasures, and to have
been lost with them by the sinking of the ship, off Malea, I think it
was. The picture of the picture I have seen, and the best word-picture I
can manage of that I am now to give you; I am no connoisseur, you must
understand, but I have a vivid recollection of it as I saw it in an
Athenian studio not long ago; and my warm admiration of it as a work of
art may perhaps inspire me with a clear description.
On fresh green-sward appears the mother Centaur, the whole equine part of
her stretched on the ground, her hoofs extended backwards; the human part
is slightly raised on the elbows; the fore feet are not extended like the
others, for she is only partially on her side; one of them is bent as in
the act of kneeling, with the hoof tucked in, while the other is
beginning to straighten and take a hold on the ground--the action of a
horse rising. Of the cubs she is holding one in her arms suckling it in
the human fashion, while the other is drawing at the mare's dug like a
foal. In the upper part of the picture, as on higher ground, is a Centaur
who is clearly the husband of the nursing mother; he leans over laughing,
visible only down to the middle of his horse body; he holds a lion whelp
aloft in his right hand, terrifying the youngsters with it in sport.
There are no doubt qualities in the painting which evade analysis by a
mere amateur, and yet involve supreme craftsmanship--such things as
precision of line, perfect mastery of the palette, clever brush-work,
management of shadow, perspective, proportion, and relation of the parts
to the whole; but I leave all that to the professionals whose business it
is to appreciate it; what strikes _me_ especially about Zeuxis is
the manifold scope which he has found for his extraordinary skill, in a
single subject. You have in the husband a truly terrible savage creature;
his locks toss about, he is almost covered with hair, human part as well
as equine; the shoulders high to monstrosity; the look, even in his merry
mood, brutal, uncivilized, wild.
In contrast with him, the animal half of the female is lovely; a
Thessalian filly, yet unbroken and unbacked, might come nearest; and the
human upper half is also most beautiful, with the one exception of the
ears, which are pointed as in a satyr. At the point of junction which
blends the two natures, there is no sharp line of division, but the most
gradual of transitions; a touch here, a trait there, and you are
surprised to find the change complete. It was perfectly wonderful, again,
to see the combination of wildness and infancy, of terrible and tender,
in the young ones, looking up in baby curiosity at the lion-cub, while
they held on to breast and dug, and cuddled close to their dam.
Zeuxis imagined that when the picture was shown the technique of it would
take visitors by storm. Well, they did acclaim him; they could hardly
help that, with such a masterpiece before them; but their commendations
were all in the style of those given to me the other night; it was the
strangeness of the idea, the fresh unhackneyed sentiment of the picture,
and so on. Zeuxis saw that they were preoccupied with the novelty of his
subject, art was at a discount, and truth of rendering quite a minor
matter. 'Oh, pack it up, Miccio,' he said to his pupil, 'and you and the
others take it home; these people are delighted with the earthy part of
the work; the questions of its aim, its beauty, its artistic merit, are
of no importance whatever; novelty of subject goes for much more than
truth of rendering.'
So said Zeuxis, not in the best of tempers. Antiochus Soter had a
somewhat similar experience about his battle with the Galatians. If you
will allow me, I propose to give you an account of that event also. These
people were good fighters, and on this occasion in great force; they were
drawn up in a serried phalanx, the first rank, which consisted of steel-
clad warriors, being supported by men of the ordinary heavy-armed type to
the depth of four-and-twenty; twenty thousand cavalry held the flanks;
and there were eighty scythed, and twice that number of ordinary war
chariots ready to burst forth from the centre. These dispositions filled
Antiochus with apprehension, and he thought the task was too hard for
him. His own preparations had been hurried, on no great scale, and
inadequate to the occasion; he had brought quite a small force, mostly of
skirmishers and light-armed troops; more than half his men were without
defensive armour. He was disposed to negotiate and find some honourable
composition.
Theodotas of Rhodes, however, a brave and skilful officer, put him in
heart again. Antiochus had sixteen elephants; Theodotas advised him to
conceal these as well as he could for the present, not letting their
superior height betray them; when the signal for battle was given, the
shock just at hand, the enemy's cavalry charging, and their phalanx
opening to give free passage to the chariots, then would be the time for
the elephants. A section of four was to meet the cavalry on each flank,
and the remaining eight to engage the chariot squadron. 'By this means,'
he concluded, 'the horses will be frightened, and there will be a
stampede into the Galatian infantry.' His anticipations were realized,
thus:
Neither the Galatians nor their horses had ever seen an elephant, and
they were so taken aback by the strange sight that, long before the
beasts came to close quarters, the mere sound of their trumpeting, the
sight of their gleaming tusks relieved against dark bodies, and minatory
waving trunks, was enough; before they were within bow-shot, the enemy
broke and ran in utter disorder; the infantry were spitted on each
other's spears, and trampled by the cavalry who came scurrying on to
them. The chariots, turning in like manner upon their own friends,
whirled about among them by no means harmlessly; it was a Homeric scene
of 'rumbling tumbling cars'; when once the horses shied at those
formidable elephants, off went the drivers, and 'the lordless chariots
rattled on,' their scythes maiming and carving any of their late masters
whom they came within reach of; and, in that chaos, many were the
victims. Next came the elephants, trampling, tossing, tearing, goring;
and a very complete victory they had made of it for Antiochus.
The carnage was great, and all the Galatians were either killed or
captured, with the exception of a quite small band which got off to the
mountains; Antiochus's Macedonians sang the Paean, gathered round,
and garlanded him with acclamations on the glorious victory. But the
King--so the story goes--was in tears; 'My men,' he said, 'we have more
reason for shame; saved by those sixteen brutes! if their strangeness
had not produced the panic, where should we have been?' And on the
trophy he would have nothing carved except just an elephant.
Gentlemen, _de me fabula_; are my resources like those of Antiochus--
quite unfit for battle on the whole, but including some elephants, some
queer impositions, some jugglery, in fact? That is what all the praise I
hear points at. The things I really relied upon seem to be of little
account; the mere fact that my picture is of a female Centaur exercises
fascination; it passes for a novelty and a marvel, as indeed it is. The
rest of Zeuxis's pains is thrown away, I suppose. But ah, no, not thrown
away--; _you_ are connoisseurs, and judge by the rules of art. I
only hope the show may be worthy of the spectators.
HARMONIDES
'Tell me, Timotheus,' said Harmonides the flute-player one day to his
teacher, 'tell me how I may win distinction in my art. What can I do to
make myself known all over Greece? Everything but this you have taught
me. I have a correct ear, thanks to you, and a smooth, even delivery, and
have acquired the light touch so essential to the rendering of rapid
measures; rhythmical effect, the adaptation of music to dance, the true
character of the different moods--exalted Phrygian, joyous Lydian,
majestic Dorian, voluptuous Ionic--all these I have mastered with your
assistance. But the prime object of my musical aspirations seems out of
my reach: I mean popular esteem, distinction, and notoriety; I would have
all eyes turn in my direction, all tongues repeat my name: "There goes
Harmonides, the great flute-player." Now when _you_ first came from
your home in Boeotia, and performed in the _Procne_, and won the
prize for your rendering of the _Ajax Furens_, composed by your
namesake, there was not a man who did not know the name of Timotheus of
Thebes; and in these days you have only to show yourself, and people
flock together as birds do at the sight of an owl in daylight. It is for
this that I sought to become a flute-player; this was to be the reward of
all my toil. The skill without the glory I would not take at a gift, not
though I should prove to be a Marsyas or an Olympus in disguise. What is
the use of a light that is to be hidden under a bushel? Show me then,
Timotheus, how I may avail myself of my powers and of my art. I shall be
doubly your debtor: not for my skill alone, but for the glory that skill
confers.'
'Why, really,' says Timotheus, 'it is no such easy matter, Harmonides, to
become a public character, or to gain the prestige and distinction to
which you aspire; and if you propose to set about it by performing in
public, you will find it a long business, and at the best will never
achieve a universal reputation. Where will you find a theatre or circus
large enough to admit the whole nation as your audience? But if you would
attain your object and become known, take this hint. By all means perform
occasionally in the theatres, but do not concern yourself with the
public. Here is the royal road to fame: get together a small and select
audience of connoisseurs, real experts, whose praise, whose blame are
equally to be relied upon; display your skill to these; and if you can
win _their_ approval, you may rest content that in a single hour you
have gained a national reputation. I argue thus. If you are known to be
an admirable performer by persons who are themselves universally known
and admired, what have you to do with public opinion? Public opinion must
inevitably follow the opinion of the best judges. The public after all is
mainly composed of untutored minds, that know not good from bad
themselves; but when they hear a man praised by the great authorities,
they take it for granted that he is not undeserving of praise, and praise
him accordingly. It is the same at the games: most of the spectators know
enough to clap or hiss, but the judging is done by some five or six
persons.'
Harmonides had no time to put this policy into practice. The story goes
that in his first public competition he worked so energetically at his
flute, that he breathed his last into it, and expired then and there,
before he could be crowned. His first Dionysiac performance was also his
last.
But Timotheus's remarks need not be confined to Harmonides, nor to his
profession: they seem applicable to all whose ambition prompts them to
exhibit their talents and to aim at the approbation of the public.
Accordingly, when I, like Harmonides, was debating within myself the
speediest means of becoming known, I took Timotheus's advice: 'Who,' I
asked myself, 'is the foremost man in all this city? Whose credit is
highest with his neighbours? Who shall be my _multum in parvo_?'
Only one name could reasonably suggest itself--your own; which stands for
the perfection of every excellence, the glass of culture and the mould of
wit. To submit my works to you, to win _your_ approbation--if such a
thing might be!--were to reach the goal of my desire; for your suffrage
carries the rest with it. Whom, indeed, could I substitute in your place,
and hope to preserve a reputation for sanity? In a sense, no doubt, I
shall be hazarding all on one cast of the die: yet with more truth I
might be said to have summoned the whole population into one audience-
chamber; for your single judgement must assuredly outweigh the rest,
taken individually or collectively. The Spartan kings had two votes each
to the ordinary man's one: but you are a whole Privy Council and Senate
in yourself. Your influence is unequalled in the Court of Literature,
and, above all, yours is the casting-vote of acquittal; an encouraging
thought for me, who might well be uneasy otherwise at the extent of my
hardihood. Moreover, I am not wholly without a claim on your interest, as
belonging to that city which has so often enjoyed peculiar benefits at
your hand, in addition to those which it has shared with the nation at
large; and this encourages me to hope that in the present instance, if
judgement is going against me, and the votes of acquittal are in a
minority, you will use your prerogative, and make all right with that
casting-vote of yours. I may have had successes, I may have made a name,
my lectures may have been well received:--all this amounts to nothing; it
is visionary; it is a mere bubble. The truth must come to light now; I am
put to a final test; there will be no room for doubt or hesitation after
this. It rests with you, whether my literary rank shall be assured, or my
pretensions--but no! with such a contest before me, I will abstain from
words of evil omen.
Ye Gods, give me approval _here_, and set the seal upon my
reputation! I may then face the world with a light heart: he who has
carried the prize at Olympia need fear no other course.
THE SCYTHIAN
Anacharsis was not the first Scythian who was induced by the love of
Greek culture to leave his native country and visit Athens: he had been
preceded by Toxaris, a man of high ability and noble sentiments, and an
eager student of manners and customs; but of low origin, not like
Anacharsis a member of the royal family or of the aristocracy of his
country, but what they call _'an eight-hoof man,'_ a term which
implies the possession of a waggon and two oxen. Toxaris never returned
to Scythia, but died at Athens, where he presently came to be ranked
among the Heroes; and sacrifice is still paid to 'the Foreign Physician,'
as he was styled after his deification. Some account of the significance
of this name, the origin of his worship, and his connexion with the sons
of Asclepius, will not, I think, be out of place: for it will be seen
from this that the Scythians, in conferring immortality on mortals, and
sending them to keep company with Zamolxis, do not stand alone; since the
Athenians permit themselves to make Gods of Scythians upon Greek soil.
At the time of the great plague, the wife of Architeles the Areopagite
had a vision: the Scythian Toxaris stood over her and commanded her to
tell the Athenians that the plague would cease if they would sprinkle
their back-streets with wine. The Athenians attended to his instructions,
and after several sprinklings had been performed, the plague troubled
them no more; whether it was that the perfume of the wine neutralized
certain noxious vapours, or that the hero, being a medical hero, had some
other motive for his advice. However that may be, he continues to this
day to draw a fee for his professional services, in the shape of a white
horse, which is sacrificed on his tomb. This tomb was pointed out by
Dimaenete as the place from which he issued with his instructions about
the wine; and beneath it Toxaris was found buried, his identity being
established not merely by the inscription, of which only a part remained
legible, but also by the figure engraved on the monument, which was that
of a Scythian, with a bow, ready strung, in his left hand, and in the
right what appeared to be a book. You may still make out more than half
the figure, with the bow and book complete: but the upper portion of the
stone, including the face, has suffered from the ravages of time. It is
situated not far from the Dipylus, on your left as you leave the Dipylus
for the Academy. The mound is of no great size, and the pillar lies
prostrate: yet it never lacks a garland, and there are statements to the
effect that fever-patients have been known to be cured by the hero; which
indeed is not surprising, considering that he once healed an entire city.
However, my reason for mentioning Toxaris was this. He was still alive,
when Anacharsis landed at Piraeus and made his way up to Athens, in no
small perturbation of spirit; a foreigner and a barbarian, everything was
strange to him, and many things caused him uneasiness; he knew not what
to do with himself; he saw that every one was laughing at his attire; he
could find no one to speak his native tongue;--in short he was heartily
sick of his travels, and made up his mind that he would just see Athens,
and then retreat to his ship without loss of time, get on board, and so
back to the Bosphorus; once there he had no great journey to perform
before he would be home again. In this frame of mind he had already
reached the Ceramicus, when his good genius appeared to him in the guise
of Toxaris. The attention of the latter was immediately arrested by the
dress of his native country, nor was it likely that he would have any
difficulty in recognizing Anacharsis, who was of noble birth and of the
highest rank in Scythia. Anacharsis, on the other hand, could not be
expected to see a compatriot in Toxaris, who was dressed in the Greek
fashion, without sword or belt, wore no beard, and from his fluent speech
might have been an Athenian born; so completely had time transformed him.
'You are surely Anacharsis, the son of Daucetas?' he said, addressing him
in the Scythian language. Anacharsis wept tears of joy; he not only heard
his mother-tongue, but heard it from one who had known him in Scythia.
'How comes it, sir, that you know me?' he asked.
'I too am of that country; my name is Toxaris; but it is probably not
known to you, for I am a man of no family.'
'Are you that Toxaris,' exclaimed the other, 'of whom I heard that for
love of Greece he had left wife and children in Scythia, and gone to
Athens, and was there dwelling in high honour?'
'What, is my name still remembered among you?--Yes, I am Toxaris.'
'Then,' said Anacharsis, 'you see before you a disciple, who has caught
your enthusiasm for Greece; it was with no other object than this that I
set out on my travels. The hardships I have endured in the countries
through which I passed on my way hither are infinite; and I had already
decided, when I met you, that before the sun set I would return to my
ship; so much was I disturbed at the strange and outlandish sights that I
have seen. And now, Toxaris, I adjure you by Scimetar and Zamolxis, our
country's Gods,--take me by the hand, be my guide, and make me acquainted
with all that is best in Athens and in the rest of Greece; their great
men, their wise laws, their customs, their assemblies, their
constitution, their everyday life. You and I have both travelled far to
see these things: you will not suffer me to depart without seeing them?'
'What! come to the very door, and then turn back? This is not the
language of enthusiasm. However, there is no fear of that--you will not
go back, Athens will not let you off so easily. She is not so much at a
loss for charms wherewith to detain the stranger: she will take such a
hold on you, that you will forget your own wife and children--if you have
any. Now I will put you into the readiest way of seeing Athens, ay, and
Greece, and the glories of Greece. There is a certain philosopher living
here; he is an Athenian, but has travelled a great deal in Asia and
Egypt, and held intercourse with the most eminent men. For the rest, he
is none of your moneyed men: indeed, he is quite poor; be prepared for an
old man, dressed as plainly as could be. Yet his virtue and wisdom are
held in such esteem, that he was employed by them to draw up a
constitution, and his ordinances form their rule of life. Make this man
your friend, study him, and rest assured that in knowing him you know
Greece; for he is an epitome of all that is excellent in the Greek
character. I can do you no greater service than to introduce you to him.'
'Let us lose no time, then, Toxaris. Take me to him. But perhaps that is
not so easily done? He may slight your intercessions on my behalf?'
'You know not what you say. Nothing gives him greater pleasure than to
have an opportunity of showing his hospitality to strangers. Only follow
me, and you shall see how courteous and benevolent he is, and how devout
a worshipper of the God of Hospitality. But stay: how fortunate! here he
comes towards us. See, he is wrapped in thought, and mutters to himself.
--Solon!' he cried; 'I bring you the best of gifts--a stranger who craves
your friendship. He is a Scythian of noble family; but has left all and
come here to enjoy the society of Greeks, and to view the wonders of
their country. I have hit upon a simple expedient which will enable him
to do both, to see all that is to be seen, and to form the most desirable
acquaintances: in other words, I have brought him to Solon, who, if I
know anything of his character, will not refuse to take him under his
protection, and to make him a Greek among Greeks.--It is as I told you,
Anacharsis: having seen Solon, you have seen all; behold Athens; behold
Greece. You are a stranger no longer: all men know you, all men are your
friends; this it is to possess the friendship of the venerable Solon.
Conversing with him, you will forget Scythia and all that is in it. Your
toils are rewarded, your desire is fulfilled. In him you have the
mainspring of Greek civilization, in him the ideals of Athenian
philosophers are realized. Happy man--if you know your happiness--to be
the friend and intimate of Solon!'
It would take too long to describe the pleasure of Solon at Toxaris's
'gift,' his words on the occasion, and his subsequent intercourse with
Anacharsis--how he gave him the most valuable instruction, procured him
the friendship of all Athens, showed him the sights of Greece, and took
every trouble to make his stay in the country a pleasant one; and how
Anacharsis for his part regarded the sage with such reverence, that he
was never willingly absent from his side. Suffice it to say, that the
promise of Toxaris was fulfilled: thanks to Solon's good offices,
Anacharsis speedily became familiar with Greece and with Greek society,
in which he was treated with the consideration due to one who came thus
strongly recommended; for here too Solon was a lawgiver: those whom he
esteemed were loved and admired by all. Finally, if we may believe the
statement of Theoxenus, Anacharsis was presented with the freedom of the
city, and initiated into the mysteries; nor does it seem likely that he
would ever have returned to Scythia, had not Solon died.
And now perhaps I had better put the moral to my tale, if it is not to
wander about in a headless condition. What are Anacharsis and Toxaris
doing here to-day in Macedonia, bringing Solon with them too, poor old
gentleman, all the way from Athens? It is time for me to explain. The
fact is, my situation is pretty much that of Anacharsis. I crave your
indulgence, in venturing to compare myself with royalty. Anacharsis,
after all, was a barbarian; and I should hope that we Syrians are as good
as Scythians. And I am not comparing myself with Anacharsis the king, but
Anacharsis the barbarian. When first I set foot in your city, I was
filled with amazement at its size, its beauty, its population, its
resources and splendour generally. For a time I was dumb with admiration;
the sight was too much for me. I felt like the island lad Telemachus, in
the palace of Menelaus; and well I might, as I viewed this city in all
her pride;
A garden she, whose flowers are ev'ry blessing.
Thus affected, I had to bethink me what course I should adopt. For as to
lecturing here, my mind had long been made up about _that_; what
other audience could I have in view, that I should pass by this great
city in silence? To make a clean breast of it, then, I set about
inquiring who were your great men; for it was my design to approach them,
and secure their patronage and support in facing the public. Unlike
Anacharsis, who had but one informant, and a barbarian at that, I had
many; and all told me the same tale, in almost the same words. 'Sir,'
they said, 'we have many excellent and able men in this city--nowhere
will you find more: but two there are who stand pre-eminent; who in birth
and in prestige are without a rival, and in learning and eloquence might
be matched with the Ten Orators of Athens. They are regarded by the
public with feelings of absolute devotion: their will is law; for they
will nothing but the highest interests of the city. Their courtesy, their
hospitality towards strangers, their unassuming benevolence, their
modesty in the midst of greatness, their gentleness, their affability,--
all these you will presently experience, and will have something to say
on the subject yourself. But--wonder of wonders!--these two are of one
house, father and son. For the father, conceive to yourself a Solon, a
Pericles, an Aristides: as to the son, his manly comeliness and noble
stature will attract you at the first glance; and if he do but say two
words, your ears will be taken captive by the charm that sits upon his
tongue. When he speaks in public, the city listens like one man, open-
mouthed; 'tis Athens listening to Alcibiades; yet the Athenians presently
repented of their infatuation for the son of Clinias, but here love grows
to reverence; the welfare of this city, the happiness of her citizens,
are all bound up in one man. Once let the father and son admit you to
their friendship, and the city is yours; they have but to raise a finger,
to put your success beyond a doubt.'--Such, by Heaven (if Heaven must be
invoked for the purpose), such was the unvarying report I heard; and I
now know from experience that it fell far short of the truth.
Then up, nor waste thy days In indolent delays,
as the Cean poet cries; I must strain every nerve, work body and soul, to
gain these friends. That once achieved, fair weather and calm seas are
before me, and my haven is near at hand.
THE WAY TO WRITE HISTORY
MY DEAR PHILO,
There is a story of a curious epidemic at Abdera, just after the
accession of King Lysimachus. It began with the whole population's
exhibiting feverish symptoms, strongly marked and unintermittent from the
very first attack. About the seventh day, the fever was relieved, in some
cases by a violent flow of blood from the nose, in others by perspiration
not less violent. The mental effects, however, were most ridiculous; they
were all stage-struck, mouthing blank verse and ranting at the top of
their voices. Their favourite recitation was the _Andromeda_ of
Euripides; one after another would go through the great speech of
Perseus; the whole place was full of pale ghosts, who were our seventh-
day tragedians vociferating,
O Love, who lord'st it over Gods and men,
and the rest of it. This continued for some time, till the coming of
winter put an end to their madness with a sharp frost. I find the
explanation of the form it took in this fact: Archelaus was then the
great tragic actor, and in the middle of the summer, during some very hot
weather, he had played the _Andromeda_ there; most of them took the
fever in the theatre, and convalescence was followed by a relapse--into
tragedy, the _Andromeda_ haunting their memories, and Perseus
hovering, Gorgon's head in hand, before the mind's eye.
Well, to compare like with like, the majority of our educated class is
now suffering from an Abderite epidemic. They are not stage-struck,
indeed; that would have been a minor infatuation--to be possessed with
other people's verses, not bad ones either; no; but from the beginning of
the present excitements--the barbarian war, the Armenian disaster, the
succession of victories--you cannot find a man but is writing history;
nay, every one you meet is a Thucydides, a Herodotus, a Xenophon. The old
saying must be true, and war be the father of all things [Footnote: See
note on _Icaromenippus_, 8.], seeing what a litter of historians it
has now teemed forth at a birth.
Such sights and sounds, my Philo, brought into my head that old anecdote
about the Sinopean. A report that Philip was marching on the town had
thrown all Corinth into a bustle; one was furbishing his arms, another
wheeling stones, a third patching the wall, a fourth strengthening a
battlement, every one making himself useful somehow or other. Diogenes
having nothing to do--of course no one thought of giving _him_ a
job--was moved by the sight to gird up his philosopher's cloak and begin
rolling his tub-dwelling energetically up and down the Craneum; an
acquaintance asked, and got, the explanation: 'I do not want to be
thought the only idler in such a busy multitude; I am rolling my tub to
be like the rest.'
I too am reluctant to be the only dumb man at so vociferous a season; I
do not like walking across the stage, like a 'super', in gaping silence;
so I decided to roll _my_ cask as best I could. I do not intend to
write a history, or attempt actual narrative; I am not courageous enough
for that; have no apprehensions on my account; I realize the danger of
rolling the thing over the rocks, especially if it is only a poor little
jar of brittle earthenware like mine; I should very soon knock against
some pebble and find myself picking up the pieces. Come, I will tell you
my idea for campaigning in safety, and keeping well out of range.
Give a wide berth to all that foam and spray, and to the anxieties which
vex the historian--that I shall be wise enough to do; but I propose to
give a little advice, and lay down a few principles for the benefit of
those who do venture. I shall have a share in their building, if not in
the dedicatory inscription; my finger-tips will at least have touched
their wet mortar.
However, most of them see no need for advice here: _there might as well
be an art of talking, seeing, or eating; history-writing is perfectly
easy, comes natural, is a universal gift; all that is necessary is the
faculty of translating your thoughts into words_. But the truth is--you
know it without my telling, old friend--, it is _not_ a task to be lightly
undertaken, or carried through without effort; no, it needs as much care
as any sort of composition whatever, if one means to create 'a possession
for ever,' as Thucydides calls it. Well, I know I shall not get a hearing
from many of them, and some will be seriously offended--especially any who
have finished and produced their work; in cases where its first reception
was favourable, it would be folly to expect the authors to recast or
correct; has it not the stamp of finality? is it not almost a State
document? Yet even they may profit by my words; _we_ are not likely to be
attacked again; we have disposed of all our enemies; but there might be a
Celto-Gothic or an Indo-Bactrian war; then our friends' composition might
be improved by the application of my measuring-rod--always supposing that
they recognize its correctness; failing that, let them do their own
mensuration with the old foot-rule; the doctor will not particularly mind,
though all Abdera insists on spouting the _Andromeda_.
Advice has two provinces--one of choice, the other of avoidance; let us
first decide what the historian is to avoid--of what faults he must purge
himself--, and then proceed to the measures he must take for putting
himself on the straight high road. This will include the manner of his
beginning, the order in which he should marshal his facts, the questions
of proportion, of discreet silence, of full or cursory narration, of
comment and connexion. Of all that, however, later on; for the present we
deal with the vices to which bad writers are liable. As to those faults
of diction, construction, meaning, and general amateurishness, which are
common to every kind of composition, to discuss them is neither
compatible with my space nor relevant to my purpose.
But there are mistakes peculiar to history; your own observation will
show you just those which a constant attendance at authors'
readings [Footnote: These were very common in Roman Imperial times, for
purposes of advertisement, of eliciting criticism, &c. 'The audience at
recitations may be compared with the modern literary reviews, discharging
the functions of a preventive and emendatory, not merely of a
correctional tribunal. Before publication a work might thus be known to
more hearers than it would now find readers' Mayor, _Juvenal_, iii.
9.] has impressed on me; you have only to keep your ears open at every
opportunity. It will be convenient, however, to refer by the way to a few
illustrations in recent histories. Here is a serious fault to begin with.
It is the fashion to neglect the examination of facts, and give the space
gained to eulogies of generals and commanders; those of their own side
they exalt to the skies, the other side they disparage intemperately.
They forget that between history and panegyric there is a great gulf
fixed, barring communication; in musical phrase, the two things are a
couple of octaves apart. The panegyrist has only one concern--to commend
and gratify his living theme some way or other; if misrepresentation will
serve his purpose, he has no objection to that. History, on the other
hand, abhors the intrusion of any least scruple of falsehood; it is like
the windpipe, which the doctors tell us will not tolerate a morsel of
stray food.
Another thing these gentlemen seem not to know is that poetry and history
offer different wares, and have their separate rules. Poetry enjoys
unrestricted freedom; it has but one law--the poet's fancy. He is
inspired and possessed by the Muses; if he chooses to horse his car with
winged steeds, or set others a-galloping over the sea, or standing corn,
none challenges his right; his Zeus, with a single cord, may haul up
earth and sea, and hold them dangling together--there is no fear the cord
may break, the load come tumbling down and be smashed to atoms. In a
complimentary picture of Agamemnon, there is nothing against his having
Zeus's head and eyes, his brother Posidon's chest, Ares's belt--in fact,
the son of Atreus and Aerope will naturally be an epitome of all
Divinity; Zeus or Posidon or Ares could not singly or severally provide
the requisite perfections. But, if history adopts such servile arts, it
is nothing but poetry without the wings; the exalted tones are missing;
and imposition of other kinds without the assistance of metre is only the
more easily detected. It is surely a great, a superlative weakness, this
inability to distinguish history from poetry; what, bedizen history, like
her sister, with tale and eulogy and their attendant exaggerations? as
well take some mighty athlete with muscles of steel, rig him up with
purple drapery and meretricious ornament, rouge and powder his cheeks;
faugh, what an object would one make of him with such defilements!
I would not be understood to exclude eulogy from history altogether; it
is to be kept to its place and used with moderation, is not to tax the
reader's patience; I shall presently show, indeed, that in all such
matters an eye is to be had to posterity. It is true, there is a school
which makes a pretty division of history into the agreeable and the
useful, and defends the introduction of panegyric on the ground that it
is agreeable, and pleases the general reader. But nothing could be
further from the truth. In the first place the division is quite a false
one; history has only one concern and aim, and that is the useful; which
again has one single source, and that is truth. The agreeable is no doubt
an addition, if it is present; so is beauty to an athlete; but a
Nicostratus, who is a fine fellow and proves himself a better man than
either of his opponents, gets his recognition as a Heracles, however ugly
his face may be; and if one opponent is the handsome Alcaeus himself--
handsome enough to make Nicostratus in love with him, says the story--,
that does not affect the issue. History too, if it can deal incidentally
in the agreeable, will attract a multitude of lovers; but so long as it
does its proper business efficiently--and that is the establishment of
truth--, it may be indifferent to beauty.
It is further to be remarked, that in history sheer extravagance has not
even the merit of being agreeable; and the extravagance of eulogy is
doubly repulsive, as extravagance, and as eulogy; at least it is only
welcome to the vulgar majority, not to that critical, that perhaps
hypercritical audience, whom no slip can escape, who are all eyes like
Argus, but keener than he, who test every word as a moneychanger might
his coins, rejecting the false on the spot, but accepting the good and
heavy and true; it is they that we should have in mind as we write
history, and never heed the others, though they applaud till they crack
their voices. If you neglect the critics, and indulge in the cloying
sweetness of tales and eulogies and such baits, you will soon find your
history a 'Heracles in Lydia.' No doubt you have seen some picture of
him: he is Omphale's slave, dressed up in an absurd costume, his lion-
skin and club transferred to her, as though she were the true Heracles,
while he, in saffron robe and purple jacket, is combing wool and wincing
under Omphale's slipper. A degrading spectacle it is--the dress loose and
flapping open, and all that was man in him turned to woman.
The vulgar may very likely extend their favour to this; but the select
(whose judgement you disregard) will get a good deal of entertainment out
of your heterogeneous, disjointed, fragmentary stuff. There is nothing
which has not a beauty of its own; but take it out of its proper sphere,
and the misuse turns its beauty to ugliness. Eulogy, I need hardly say,
may possibly please one person, the eulogized, but will disgust every one
else; this is particularly so with the monstrous exaggerations which are
in fashion; the authors are so intent on the patron-hunt that they cannot
relinquish it without a full exhibition of servility; they have no idea
of finesse, never mask their flattery, but blurt out their unconvincing
bald tale anyhow.
The consequence is, they miss even their immediate end; the objects of
their praise are more inclined (and quite right too) to dislike and
discard them for toadies--if they are men of spirit, at any rate.
Aristobulus inserted in his history an account of a single combat between
Alexander and Porus, and selected this passage to read aloud to the
former; he reckoned that his best chance of pleasing was to invent heroic
deeds for the king, and heighten his achievements. Well, they were on
board ship in the Hydaspes; Alexander took hold of the book, and tossed
it overboard; 'the author should have been treated the same way, by
rights,' he added, 'for presuming to fight duels for me like that, and
shoot down elephants single-handed.' A very natural indignation in
Alexander, of a piece with his treatment of the intrusive architect; this
person offered to convert the whole of Mount Athos into a colossal statue
of the king--who however decided that he was a toady, and actually gave
him less employment in ordinary than before.
The fact is, there is nothing agreeable in these things, except to any
one who is fool enough to enjoy commendations which the slightest inquiry
will prove to be unfounded; of course there _are_ ugly persons--women more
especially--who ask artists to paint them as beautiful as they can; they
think they will be really better-looking if the painter heightens the rose
a little and distributes a good deal of the lily. There you have the
origin of the present crowd of historians, intent only upon the passing
day, the selfish interest, the profit which they reckon to make out of
their work; execration is their desert--in the present for their
undisguised clumsy flattery, in the future for the stigma which their
exaggerations bring upon history in general. If any one takes some
admixture of the agreeable to be an absolute necessity, let him be
content with the independent beauties of style; these are agreeable
without being false; but they are usually neglected now, for the better
foisting upon us of irrelevant substitutes.
Passing from that point, I wish to put on record some fresh recollections
of Ionian histories--supported, now I think of it, by Greek analogies
also of recent date--both concerned with the war already alluded to. You
may trust my report, the Graces be my witness; I would take oath to its
truth, if it were polite to swear on paper. One writer started with
invoking the Muses to lend a hand. What a tasteful exordium! How suited
to the historic spirit! How appropriate to the style! When he had got a
little way on, he compared our ruler to Achilles, and the Parthian king
to Thersites; he forgot that Achilles would have done better if he had
had Hector instead of Thersites to beat, if there had been a man of might
fleeing in front,
But at his heels a mightier far than he.
He next proceeded to say something handsome about himself, as a fit
chronicler of such brilliant deeds. As he got near his point of
departure, he threw in a word for his native town of Miletus, adding that
he was thus improving on Homer, who never so much as mentioned his
birthplace. And he concluded his preface with a plain express promise to
advance our cause and personally wage war against the barbarians, to the
best of his ability. The actual history, and recital of the causes of
hostilities, began with these words:--'The detestable Vologesus (whom
Heaven confound!) commenced war on the following pretext.'
Enough of him. Another is a keen emulator of Thucydides, and by way of
close approximation to his model starts with his own name--most graceful
of beginnings, redolent of Attic thyme! Look at it: 'Crepereius
Calpurnianus of Pompeiopolis wrote the history of the war between Parthia
and Rome, how they warred one upon the other, beginning with the
commencement of the war.' After that exordium, what need to describe the
rest--what harangues he delivers in Armenia, resuscitating our old friend
the Corcyrean envoy--what a plague he inflicts on Nisibis (which would
not espouse the Roman cause), lifting the whole thing bodily from
Thucydides--except the Pelasgicum and the Long Walls, where the victims
of the earlier plague found shelter; there the difference ends; like the
other, 'it began in Ethiopia, whence it descended to Egypt,' and to most
of the Parthian empire, where it very discreetly remained. I left him
engaged in burying the poor Athenians in Nisibis, and knew quite well how
he would continue after my exit. Indeed it is a pretty common belief at
present that you are writing like Thucydides, if you just use his actual
words, _mutatis mutandis_. [Footnote: Omitting, with Dindorf, the words
which appear in the Teubner text, after emendation, as: mikra rakia, opos
kai autos au phaiaes, on di autaen.] Ah, and I almost forgot to mention
one thing: this same writer gives many names of weapons and military
engines in Latin--_phossa_ for trench, _pons_ for bridge, and so forth.
Just think of the dignity of history, and the Thucydidean style--the Attic
embroidered with these Latin words, like a toga relieved and picked out
with the purple stripe--so harmonious!
Another puts down a bald list of events, as prosy and commonplace as a
private's or a carpenter's or a sutler's diary. However, there is more
sense in this poor man's performance; he flies his true colours from the
first; he has cleared the ground for some educated person who knows how
to deal with history. The only fault I have to find with him is that he
inscribes his volumes with a solemnity rather disproportioned to the rank
of their contents--'Parthian History, by Callimorphus, Surgeon of the 6th
Pikemen, volume so-and-so.' Ah, yes, and there is a lamentable preface,
which closes with the remark that, since Asclepius is the son of Apollo,
and Apollo director of the Muses and patron of all culture, it is very
proper for a doctor to write history. Also, he starts in Ionic, but very
soon, for no apparent reason, abandons it for every-day Greek, still
keeping the Ionic _es_ and _ks_ and _ous_, but otherwise writing like
ordinary people--rather too ordinary, indeed.
Perhaps I should balance him with a philosophic historian; this
gentleman's name I will conceal, and merely indicate his attitude, as
revealed in a recent publication at Corinth. Much had been expected of
him, but not enough; starting straight off with the first sentence of the
preface, he subjects his readers to a dialectic catechism, his thesis
being the highly philosophic one, that no one but a philosopher should
write history. Very shortly there follows a second logical process,
itself followed by a third; in fact the whole preface is one mass of
dialectic figures. There is flattery, indeed, _ad nauseam_, eulogy
vulgar to the point of farce; but never without the logical trimmings;
always that dialectical catechism. I confess it strikes me as a vulgarity
also, hardly worthy of a philosopher with so long and white a beard, when
he gives it in his preface as our ruler's special good fortune that
philosophers should consent to record his actions; he had better have
left us to reach that conclusion for ourselves--if at all.
Again, it would be a sinful neglect to omit the man who begins like
this:--'I devise to tell of Romans and Persians'; then a little later,
'For 'twas Heaven's decree that the Persians should suffer evils'; and
again, 'One Osroes there was, whom Hellenes name Oxyroes'--and much more
in that style. He corresponds, you see, to one of my previous examples;
only he is a second Herodotus, and the other a second Thucydides.
There is another distinguished artist in words--again rather more
Thucydidean than Thucydides--, who gives, according to his own idea, the
clearest, most convincing descriptions of every town, mountain, plain, or
river. I wish my bitterest foe no worse fate than the reading of them.
Frigid? Caspian snows, Celtic ice, are warm in comparison. A whole book
hardly suffices him for the Emperor's shield--the Gorgon on its boss,
with eyes of blue and white and black, rainbow girdle, and snakes twined
and knotted. Why, Vologesus's breeches or his bridle, God bless me, they
take up several thousand lines apiece; the same for the look of Osroes's
hair as he swims the Tigris--or what the cave was like that sheltered
him, ivy and myrtle and bay clustered all together to shut out every ray
of light. You observe how indispensable it all is to the history; without
the scene, how could we have comprehended the action?
It is helplessness about the real essentials, or ignorance of what should
be given, that makes them take refuge in word-painting--landscapes,
caves, and the like; and when they do come upon a series of important
matters, they are just like a slave whose master has left him his money
and made him a rich man; he does not know how to put on his clothes or
take his food properly; partridges or sweetbreads or hare are served; but
he rushes in, and fills himself up with pea soup or salt fish, till he is
fit to burst. Well, the man I spoke of gives the most unconvincing wounds
and singular deaths: some one has his big toe injured, and dies on the
spot; the general Priscus calls out, and seven-and-twenty of the enemy
fall dead at the sound. As to the numbers killed, he actually falsifies
dispatches; at Europus he slaughters 70,236 of the enemy, while the
Romans lose two, and have seven wounded! How any man of sense can tolerate
such stuff, I do not know.
Here is another point quite worth mention. This writer has such a passion
for unadulterated Attic, and for refining speech to the last degree of
purity, that he metamorphoses the Latin names and translates them into
Greek; Saturninus figures as Cronius, Fronto must be Phrontis, Titianus
Titanius, with queerer transmogrifications yet. Further, on the subject
of Severian's death, he accuses all other writers of a blunder in putting
him to the sword; he is really to have starved himself to death, as the
most painless method; the fact, however, is that it was all over in three
days, whereas seven days is the regular time for starvation; are we
perhaps to conceive an Osroes waiting about for Severian to complete the
process, and putting off his assault till after the seventh day?
Then, Philo, how shall we class the historians who indulge in poetical
phraseology? 'The catapult rocked responsive,' they say; 'Loud thundered
the breach'; or, somewhere else in this delectable history, 'Thus Edessa
was girdled with clash of arms, and all was din and turmoil,' or, 'The
general pondered in his heart how to attack the wall.' Only he fills up
the interstices with such wretched common lower-class phrases as 'The
military prefect wrote His Majesty,' 'The troops were procuring the
needful,' 'They got a wash [Footnote: It was suggested in the Introduction
that Lucian's criticism is for practical purposes out of date; but
Prescott writes: 'He was surrounded by a party of friends, who had
_dropped in_, it seems, after mass, to inquire after the state of his
health, some of whom had remained to partake of his repast.'] and put in
an appearance,' and so on. It is like an actor with one foot raised on a
high buskin, and the other in a slipper.
You will find others writing brilliant high-sounding prefaces of
outrageous length, raising great expectations of the wonders to follow--
and then comes a poor little appendix of a--history; it is like nothing
in the world but a child--say the Eros you must have seen in a picture
playing in an enormous mask of Heracles or a Titan; _parturiunt montes_,
cries the audience, very naturally. That is not the way to do things; the
whole should be homogeneous and uniform, and the body in proportion to the
head--not a helmet of gold, a ridiculous breastplate patched up out of
rags or rotten leather, shield of wicker, and pig-skin greaves. You will
find plenty of historians prepared to set the Rhodian Colossus's head on
the body of a dwarf; others on the contrary show us headless bodies, and
plunge into the facts without exordium. These plead the example of
Xenophon, who starts with 'Darius and Parysatis had two children'; if they
only knew it, there is such a thing as a _virtual_ exordium, not realized
as such by everybody; but of that hereafter.
However, any mistake in mere expression or arrangement is excusable; but
when you come to fancy geography, differing from the other not by miles
or leagues, but by whole days' journeys, where is the classical model for
that? One writer has taken so little trouble with his facts--never met a
Syrian, I suppose, nor listened to the stray information you may pick up
at the barber's--, that he thus locates Europus:--'Europus lies in
Mesopotamia, two days' journey from the Euphrates, and is a colony from
Edessa.' Not content with that, this enterprising person has in the same
book taken up my native Samosata and shifted it, citadel, walls, and all,
into Mesopotamia, giving it the two rivers for boundaries, and making
them shave past it, all but touching the walls on either side. I suspect
you would laugh at me, Philo, if I were to set about convincing you that
I am neither Parthian nor Mesopotamian, as this whimsical colony-planter
makes me.
By the way, he has also a very attractive tale of Severian, learnt, he
assures us on oath, from one of the actual fugitives. According to this,
he would not die by the sword, the rope, or poison, but contrived a death
which should be tragic and impressive. He was the owner of some large
goblets of the most precious glass; having made up his mind to die, he
broke the largest of these, and used a splinter of it for the purpose,
cutting his throat with the glass. A dagger or a lancet, good enough
instruments for a manly and heroic death, he could not come at, forsooth!
Then, as Thucydides composed a funeral oration over the first victims of
that old war, our author feels it incumbent on him to do the same for
Severian; they all challenge Thucydides, you see, little as he can be
held responsible for the Armenian troubles. So he buries Severian, and
then solemnly ushers up to the grave, as Pericles's rival, one Afranius
Silo, a centurion; the flood of rhetoric which follows is so copious and
remarkable that it drew tears from me--ye Graces!--tears of laughter;
most of all where the eloquent Afranius, drawing to a close, makes
mention, with weeping and distressful moans, of all those costly dinners
and toasts. But he is a very Ajax in his conclusion. He draws his sword,
gallantly as an Afranius should, and in sight of all cuts his throat over
the grave--and God knows it was high time for an execution, if oratory
can be felony. The historian states that all the spectators admired and
lauded Afranius; as for me, I was inclined to condemn him on general
grounds--he had all but given a catalogue of sauces and dishes, and shed
tears over the memory of departed cakes--, but his capital offence was
that he had not cut the historian-tragedian's throat before he left this
life himself.
I assure you, my friend, I could largely increase my list of such
offenders; but one or two more will suffice, before proceeding to the
second part of my undertaking, the suggestions for improvement. There are
some, then, who leave alone, or deal very cursorily with, all that is
great and memorable; amateurs and not artists, they have no selective
faculty, and loiter over copious laboured descriptions of the veriest
trifles; it is as if a visitor to Olympia, instead of examining,
commending or describing to his stay-at-home friends the general
greatness and beauty of the Zeus, were to be struck with the exact
symmetry and polish of its footstool, or the proportions of its shoe, and
give all his attention to these minor points.
For instance, I have known a man get through the battle of Europus in
less than seven whole lines, and then spend twenty mortal hours on a dull
and perfectly irrelevant tale about a Moorish trooper. The trooper's name
was Mausacas; he wandered up the hills in search of water, and came upon
some Syrian yokels getting their lunch; at first they were afraid of him,
but when they found he was on the right side, they invited him to share
the meal; for one of them had travelled in the Moorish country, having a
brother serving in the army. Then come long stories and descriptions of
how he hunted there, and saw a great herd of elephants at pasture, and
was nearly eaten up by a lion, and what huge fish he had bought at
Caesarea. So this quaint historian leaves the terrible carnage to go on
at Europus, and lets the pursuit, the forced armistice, the settling of
outposts, shift for themselves, while he lingers far into the evening
watching Malchion the Syrian cheapen big mackarel at Caesarea; if night
had not come all too soon, I dare say he would have dined with him when
the fish was cooked. If all this had not been accurately set down in the
history, what sad ignorance we should have been left in! The loss to the
Romans would have been irreparable, if Mausacas the Moor had got nothing
to quench his thirst, and come back fasting to camp. Yet I am wilfully
omitting innumerable details of yet greater importance--the arrival of a
flute-girl from the next village, the exchange of gifts (Mausacas's was a
spear, Malchion's a brooch), and other incidents most essential to the
battle of Europus. It is no exaggeration to say that such writers never
give the rose a glance, but devote all their curiosity to the thorns on
its stem.
Another entertaining person, who has never set foot outside Corinth, nor
travelled as far as its harbour--not to mention seeing Syria or Armenia
--, starts with words which impressed themselves on my memory:--'Seeing
is believing: I therefore write what I have seen, not what I have been
told.' His personal observation has been so close that he describes the
Parthian 'Dragons' (they use this ensign as a numerical formula--a
thousand men to the Dragon, I believe): they are huge live dragons, he
says, breeding in Persian territory beyond Iberia; these are first
fastened to great poles and hoisted up aloft, striking terror at a
distance while the advance is going on; then, when the battle begins,
they are released and set on the enemy; numbers of our men, it seems,
were actually swallowed by them, and others strangled or crushed in their
coils; of all this he was an eye-witness, taking his observations,
however, from a safe perch up a tree. Thank goodness he did not come to
close quarters with the brutes! we should have lost a very remarkable
historian, and one who did doughty deeds in this war with his own right
hand; for he had many adventures, and was wounded at Sura (in the course
of a stroll from the Craneum to Lerna, apparently). All this he used to
read to a Corinthian audience, which was perfectly aware that he had
never so much as seen a battle-picture. Why, he did not know one weapon
or engine from another; the names of manoeuvres and formations had no
meaning for him; flank or front, line or column, it was all one.
Then there is a splendid fellow, who has boiled down into the compass of
five hundred lines (or less, to be accurate) the whole business from
beginning to end--campaigns in Armenia, in Syria, in Mesopotamia, on the
Tigris, and in Media; and having done it, he calls it a history. His
title very narrowly misses being longer than his book: 'An account of the
late campaigns of the Romans in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Media, by
Antiochianus, victor at the festival of Apollo'; he had probably won some
junior flat race.
I have known one writer compile a history of the future, including the
capture of Vologesus, the execution of Osroes (he is to be thrown to the
lions), and, crowning all, our long-deferred triumph. In this prophetic
vein, he sweeps hastily on to the end of his work; yet he finds time for
the foundation in Mesopotamia of a city, greatest of the great, and
fairest of the fair; he is still debating, however, whether the most
appropriate name will be Victoria, Concord, or Peacetown; that is yet
unsettled; we must leave the fair city unnamed for the present; but it is
already thickly populated--with empty dreams and literary drivellings. He
has also pledged himself to an account of coming events in India, and a
circumnavigation of the Atlantic; nay, the pledge is half redeemed; the
preface to the _India_ is complete; the third legion, the Celtic
contingent, and a small Moorish division, have crossed the Indus in full
force under Cassius; our most original historian will soon be posting us
up in their doings--their method of 'receiving elephants,' for instance--
in letters dated Muziris or Oxydracae.
These people's uneducated antics are infinite; they have no eyes for the
noteworthy, nor, if they had eyes, any adequate faculty of expression;
invention and fiction provide their matter, and belief in the first word
that comes their style; they pride themselves on the number of books they
run to, and yet more on their titles; for these again are quite absurd:
_--So-and-so's so many books of Parthian victories; The Parthis_, book I;
_The Parthis_, book II--quite a rival to the _Atthis_, eh? Another does it
(I have read the book) still more neatly--'_The Parthonicy of Demetrius of
Sagalassus_.' I do not wish to ridicule or make a jest of these pretty
histories; I write for a practical purpose: any one who avoids these and
similar errors is already well on the road to historical success; nay, he
is almost there, if the logical axiom is correct, that, with
incompatibles, denial of the one amounts to affirmation of the other.
_Well_, I may be told, _you have now a clear field; the thorns and
brambles have all been extirpated, the debris of others' buildings has
been carted of, the rough places have been made smooth; come, do a little
construction yourself, and show that you are not only good at destroying,
but capable of yourself planning a model, in which criticism itself shall
find nothing to criticize._
Well then, my perfect historian must start with two indispensable
qualifications; the one is political insight, the other the faculty of
expression; the first is a gift of nature, which can never be learnt; the
second should have been acquired by long practice, unremitting toil, and
loving study of the classics. There is nothing technical here, and no
room for any advice of mine; this essay does not profess to bestow
insight and acumen on those who are not endowed with them by nature;
valuable, or invaluable rather, would it have been, if it could recast
and modify like that, transmute lead into gold, tin into silver, magnify
a Conon or Leotrophides into Titormus or Milo.
But what is the function of professional advice? not the creation of
qualities which should be already there, but the indication of their
proper use. No trainer, of course,--let him be Iccus, Herodicus, Theon,
or who he may--will suggest that he can take a Perdiccas [Footnote:
Omitting, with Dindorf, a note on Perdiccas which runs thus: 'if
Perdiccas it was, and not rather Seleucus's son Antiochus, who was wasted
to a shadow by his passion for his step-mother.'] and make an Olympic
victor of him, fit to face Theagenes of Thasos or Polydamas of Scotussa;
what he _will_ tell you is that, given a constitution that will
stand training, his system will considerably improve it. So with us--we
are not to have every failure cast in our teeth, if we claim to have
invented a system for so great and difficult a subject. We do not offer
to take the first comer and make a historian of him--only to point out to
any one who has natural insight and acquired literary skill certain
straight roads (they may or may not be so in reality) which will bring
him with less waste of time and effort to his goal.
I do not suppose you will object that the man with insight has no need of
system and instruction upon the things he is ignorant of; in that case he
might have played the harp or flute untaught, and in fact have been
omniscient. But, as things are at present, he cannot perform in these
ways untaught, though with some assistance he will learn very easily, and
soon be able to get along by himself.
You now know what sort of a pupil I (like the trainer) insist upon. He
must not be weak either at understanding or at making himself understood,
but a man of penetration, a capable administrator--potentially, that is,
--with a soldierly spirit (which does not however exclude the civil
spirit), and some military experience; at the least he must have been in
camp, seen troops drilled or manoeuvred, know a little about weapons and
military engines, the differences between line and column, cavalry and
infantry tactics (with the reasons for them), frontal and flank attacks;
in a word, none of your armchair strategists relying wholly on hearsay.
But first and foremost, let him be a man of independent spirit, with
nothing to fear or hope from anybody; else he will be a corrupt judge
open to undue influences. If Philip's eye is knocked out at Olynthus by
Aster the Amphipolite archer, it is not his business to exclaim, but just
to show him as he is; he is not to think whether Alexander will be
annoyed by a circumstantial account of the cruel murder of Clitus at
table. If a Cleon has the ear of the assembly, and a monopoly of the
tribune, he will not shrink on that account from describing him as a
pestilent madman; all Athens will not stop him from dwelling on the
Sicilian disaster, the capture of Demosthenes, the death of Nicias, the
thirst, the foul water, and the shooting down of the drinkers. He will
consider very rightly that no man of sense will blame him for recounting
the effects of misfortune or folly in their entirety; he is not the
author, but only the reporter of them. If a fleet is destroyed, it is not
he who sinks it; if there is a rout, he is not in pursuit--unless perhaps
he ought to have prayed for better things, and omitted to do so. Of
course, if silence or contradiction would have put matters right,
Thucydides might with a stroke of the pen have knocked down the
counterwall on Epipolae, sent Hermocrates's trireme to the bottom, let
daylight through the accursed Gylippus before he had done blocking the
roads with wall and trench, and, finally, have cast the Syracusans into
their own quarries and sent the Athenians cruising round Sicily and Italy
with Alcibiades's first high hopes still on board. Alas, not Fate itself
may undo the work of Fate.
The historian's one task is to tell the thing as it happened. This he
cannot do, if he is Artaxerxes's physician [Footnote: See Ctesias in
Notes] trembling before him, or hoping to get a purple cloak, a golden
chain, a horse of the Nisaean breed, in payment for his laudations. A
fair historian, a Xenophon, a Thucydides, will not accept that position.
He may nurse some private dislikes, but he will attach far more
importance to the public good, and set the truth high above his hate; he
may have his favourites, but he will not spare their errors. For history,
I say again, has this and this only for its own; if a man will start upon
it, he must sacrifice to no God but Truth; he must neglect all else; his
sole rule and unerring guide is this--to think not of those who are
listening to him now, but of the yet unborn who shall seek his converse.
Any one who is intent only upon the immediate effect may reasonably be
classed among the flatterers; and History has long ago realized that
flattery is as little congenial to her as the arts of personal adornment
to an athlete's training. An anecdote of Alexander is to the point. 'Ah,
Onesicritus,' said he, 'how I should like to come to life again for a
little while, and see how your stuff strikes people by that time; at
present they have good enough reason to praise and welcome it; that is
their way of angling for a share of my favour.' On the same principle
some people actually accept Homer's history of Achilles, full of
exaggerations as it is; the one great guarantee which they recognize of
his truth is the fact that his subject was not living; that leaves him no
motive for lying.
There stands my model, then: fearless, incorruptible, independent, a
believer in frankness and veracity; one that will call a spade a spade,
make no concession to likes and dislikes, nor spare any man for pity or
respect or propriety; an impartial judge, kind to all, but too kind to
none; a literary cosmopolite with neither suzerain nor king, never
heeding what this or that man may think, but setting down the thing that
befell.
Thucydides is our noble legislator; he marked the admiration that met
Herodotus and gave the Muses' names to his nine books; and thereupon he
drew the line which parts a good historian from a bad: our work is to be
a possession for ever, not a bid for present reputation; we are not to
seize upon the sensational, but bequeath the truth to them that come
after; he applies the test of use, and defines the end which a wise
historian will set before himself: it is that, should history ever repeat
itself, the records of the past may give present guidance.
Such are to be my historian's principles. As for diction and style, he is
not to set about his work armed to the teeth from the rhetorician's
arsenal of impetuosity and incisiveness, rolling periods, close-packed
arguments, and the rest; for him a serener mood. His matter should be
homogeneous and compact, his vocabulary fit to be understanded of the
people, for the clearest possible setting forth of his subject.
For to those marks which we set up for the historic spirit--frankness and
truth--corresponds one at which the historic style should first of all
aim, namely, a lucidity which leaves nothing obscure, impartially
avoiding abstruse out-of-the-way expressions, and the illiberal jargon of
the market; we wish the vulgar to comprehend, the cultivated to commend
us. Ornament should be unobtrusive, and never smack of elaboration, if it
is not to remind us of over-seasoned dishes.
The historian's spirit should not be without a touch of the poetical; it
needs, like poetry, to employ impressive and exalted tones, especially
when it finds itself in the midst of battle array and conflicts by land
or sea; it is then that the poetic gale must blow to speed the vessel on,
and help her ride the waves in majesty. But the diction is to be content
with _terra firma_, rising a little to assimilate itself to the beauty and
grandeur of the subject, but never startling the hearer, nor forgetting a
due restraint; there is great risk at such times of its running wild and
falling into poetic frenzy; and then it is that writers should hold
themselves in with bit and bridle; with them as with horses an
uncontrollable temper means disaster. At these times it is best for the
spirit to go a-horseback, and the expression to run beside on foot,
holding on to the saddle so as not to be outstripped.
As to the marshalling of your words, a moderate compromise is desirable
between the harshness which results from separating what belongs
together, and the jingling concatenations--one may almost call them--
which are so common; one extreme is a definite vice, and the other
repellent.
Facts are not to be collected at haphazard, but with careful, laborious,
repeated investigation; when possible, a man should have been present and
seen for himself; failing that, he should prefer the disinterested
account, selecting the informants least likely to diminish or magnify
from partiality. And here comes the occasion for exercising the judgement
in weighing probabilities.
The material once complete, or nearly so, an abstract should be made of
it, and a rough draught of the whole work put down, not yet distributed
into its parts; the detailed arrangement should then be introduced, after
which adornment may be added, the diction receive its colour, the
phrasing and rhythm be perfected.
The historian's position should now be precisely that of Zeus in Homer,
surveying now the Mysians', now the Thracian horsemen's land. Even so
_he_ will survey now his own party (telling us what we looked like
to him from his post of vantage), now the Persians, and yet again both at
once, if they come to blows. And when they are face to face, his eyes are
not to be on one division, nor yet on one man, mounted or afoot--unless
it be a Brasidas leading the forlorn hope, or a Demosthenes repelling it;
his attention should be for the generals first of all; their exhortations
should be recorded, the dispositions they make, and the motives and plans
that prompted them. When the engagement has begun, he should give us a
bird's-eye view of it, show the scales oscillating, and accompany
pursuers and pursued alike.
All this, however, with moderation; a subject is not to be ridden to
death; no neglect of proportion, no childish engrossment, but easy
transitions. He should call a halt here, while he crosses over to another
set of operations which demands attention; that settled up, he can return
to the first set, now ripe for him; he must pass swiftly to each in turn,
keeping his different lines of advance as nearly as possible level, fly
from Armenia to Media, thence swoop straight upon Iberia, and then take
wing for Italy, everywhere present at the nick of time.
He has to make of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of
surface; then he will reflect events as they presented themselves to him,
neither distorted, discoloured, nor variable. Historians are not writing
fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get
itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put
it into words; they have not to consider what to say, but how to say it.
The historian, we may say, should be like Phidias, Praxiteles, Alcamenes,
or any great sculptor. They similarly did not create the gold, silver,
ivory, or other material they used; it was ready to their hands, provided
by Athens, Elis, or Argos; they only made the model, sawed, polished,
cemented, proportioned the ivory, and plated it with gold; that was what
their art consisted in--the right arrangement of their material. The
historian's business is similar--to superinduce upon events the charm of
order, and set them forth in the most lucid fashion he can manage. When
subsequently a hearer feels as though he were looking at what is being
told him, and expresses his approval, then our historical Phidias's work
has reached perfection, and received its appropriate reward.
When all is ready, a writer will sometimes start without formal preface,
if there is no pressing occasion to clear away preliminaries by that
means, though even then his explanation of what he is to say constitutes
a virtual preface.
When a formal preface is used, one of the three objects to which a public
speaker devotes his exordium may be neglected; the historian, that is,
has not to bespeak goodwill--only attention and an open mind. The way to
secure the reader's attention is to show that the affairs to be narrated
are great in themselves, throw light on Destiny, or come home to his
business and bosom; and as to the open mind, the lucidity in the body of
the work, which is to secure that, will be facilitated by a preliminary
view of the causes in operation and a precise summary of events.
Prefaces of this character have been employed by the best historians--by
Herodotus, 'to the end that what befell may not grow dim by lapse of
time, seeing that it was great and wondrous, and showed forth withal
Greeks vanquishing and barbarians vanquished'; and by Thucydides,
'believing that that war would be great and memorable beyond any previous
one; for indeed great calamities took place during its course.'
After the preface, long or short in proportion to the subject, should
come an easy natural transition to the narrative; for the body of the
history which remains is nothing from beginning to end but a long
narrative; it must therefore be graced with the narrative virtues--
smooth, level, and consistent progress, neither soaring nor crawling, and
the charm of lucidity--which is attained, as I remarked above, partly by
the diction, and partly by the treatment of connected events. For, though
all parts must be independently perfected, when the first is complete the
second will be brought into essential connexion with it, and attached
like one link of a chain to another; there must be no possibility of
separating them; no mere bundle of parallel threads; the first is not
simply to be next to the second, but part of it, their extremities
intermingling.
Brevity is always desirable, and especially where matter is abundant; and
the problem is less a grammatical than a substantial one; the solution, I
mean, is to deal summarily with all immaterial details, and give adequate
treatment to the principal events; much, indeed, is better omitted
altogether. Suppose yourself giving a dinner, and extremely well
provided; there is pastry, game, kickshaws without end, wild boar, hare,
sweetbreads; well, you will not produce among these a pike, or a bowl of
peasoup, just because they are there in the kitchen; you will dispense
with such common things.
Restraint in descriptions of mountains, walls, rivers, and the like, is
very important; you must not give the impression that you are making a
tasteless display of word-painting, and expatiating independently while
the history takes care of itself. Just a light touch--no more than meets
the need of clearness--, and you should pass on, evading the snare, and
denying yourself all such indulgences. You have the mighty Homer's
example in such a case; poet as he is, he yet hurries past Tantalus and
Ixion, Tityus and the rest of them. If Parthenius, Euphorion, or
Callimachus had been in his place, how many lines do you suppose it would
have taken to get the water to Tantalus's lip; how many more to set Ixion
spinning? Better still, mark how Thucydides--a very sparing dealer in
description--leaves the subject at once, as soon as he has given an idea
(very necessary and useful, too) of an engine or a siege-operation, of
the conformation of Epipolae, or the Syracusan harbour. It may occur to
you that his account of the plague is long; but you must allow for the
subject; then you will appreciate his brevity; _he_ is hastening on;
it is only that the weight of matter holds him back in spite of himself.
When it comes in your way to introduce a speech, the first requirement is
that it should suit the character both of the speaker and of the occasion;
the second is (once more) lucidity; but in these cases you have the
counsel's right of showing your eloquence.
Not so with praise or censure; these should be sparing, cautious,
avoiding hypercriticism and producing proofs, always brief, and never
intrusive; historical characters are not prisoners on trial. Without
these precautions you will share the ill name of Theopompus, who delights
in flinging accusations broadcast, makes a business of the thing in fact,
and of himself rather a public prosecutor than a historian.
It may occasionally happen that some extraordinary story has to be
introduced; it should be simply narrated, without guarantee of its truth,
thrown down for any one to make what he can of it; the writer takes no
risks and shows no preference.
But the general principle I would have remembered--it will ever be on my
lips--is this: do not write merely with an eye to the present, that those
now living may commend and honour you; aim at eternity, compose for
posterity, and from it ask your reward; and that reward?--that it be said
of you, 'This was a man indeed, free and free-spoken; flattery and
servility were not in him; he was truth all through.' It is a name which
a man of judgement might well prefer to all the fleeting hopes of the
present.
Do you know the story of the great Cnidian architect? He was the builder
of that incomparable work, whether for size or beauty, the Pharus tower.
Its light was to warn ships far out at sea, and save them from running on
the Paraetonia, a spot so fatal to all who get among its reefs that
escape is said to be hopeless. When the building was done, he inscribed
on the actual masonry his own name, but covered this up with plaster, on
which he then added the name of the reigning king. He knew that, as
happened later, letters and plaster would fall off together, and reveal
the words:
SOSTRATUS SON OF DEXIPHANES OF CNIDUS ON BEHALF OF ALL MARINERS TO THE
SAVIOUR GODS
_He_ looked not, it appears, to that time, nor to the space of his
own little life, but to this time, and to all time, as long as his tower
shall stand and his art abide.
So too should the historian write, consorting with Truth and not with
flattery, looking to the future hope, not to the gratification of the
flattered.
There is your measuring-line for just history. If any one be found to use
it, well; I have not written in vain: if none, yet have I rolled my tub
on the Craneum.
THE TRUE HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
Athletes and physical trainers do not limit their attention to the
questions of perfect condition and exercise; they say there is a time for
relaxation also--which indeed they represent as the most important
element in training. I hold it equally true for literary men that after
severe study they should unbend the intellect, if it is to come perfectly
efficient to its next task.
The rest they want will best be found in a course of literature which
does not offer entertainment pure and simple, depending on mere wit or
felicity, but is also capable of stirring an educated curiosity--in a way
which I hope will be exemplified in the following pages. They are
intended to have an attraction independent of any originality of subject,
any happiness of general design, any verisimilitude in the piling up of
fictions. This attraction is in the veiled reference underlying all the
details of my narrative; they parody the cock-and-bull stories of ancient
poets, historians, and philosophers; I have only refrained from adding a
key because I could rely upon you to recognize as you read.
Ctesias, son of Ctesiochus of Cnidus, in his work on India and its
characteristics, gives details for which he had neither the evidence of
his eyes nor of hearsay. Iambulus's _Oceanica_ is full of marvels;
the whole thing is a manifest fiction, but at the same time pleasant
reading. Many other writers have adopted the same plan, professing to
relate their own travels, and describing monstrous beasts, savages, and
strange ways of life. The fount and inspiration of their humour is the
Homeric Odysseus, entertaining Alcinous's court with his prisoned winds,
his men one-eyed or wild or cannibal, his beasts with many heads, and his
metamorphosed comrades; the Phaeacians were simple folk, and he fooled
them to the top of their bent.
When I come across a writer of this sort, I do not much mind his lying;
the practice is much too well established for that, even with professed
philosophers; I am only surprised at his expecting to escape detection.
Now I am myself vain enough to cherish the hope of bequeathing something
to posterity; I see no reason for resigning my right to that inventive
freedom which others enjoy; and, as I have no truth to put on record,
having lived a very humdrum life, I fall back on falsehood--but falsehood
of a more consistent variety; for I now make the only true statement you
are to expect--that I am a liar. This confession is, I consider, a full
defence against all imputations. My subject is, then, what I have neither
seen, experienced, nor been told, what neither exists nor could
conceivably do so. I humbly solicit my readers' incredulity.
BOOK I
Starting on a certain date from the Pillars of Heracles, I sailed with a
fair wind into the Atlantic. The motives of my voyage were a certain
intellectual restlessness, a passion for novelty, a curiosity about the
limits of the ocean and the peoples who might dwell beyond it. This being
my design, I provisioned and watered my ship on a generous scale. My crew
amounted to fifty, all men whose interests, as well as their years,
corresponded with my own. I had further provided a good supply of arms,
secured the best navigator to be had for money, and had the ship--a
sloop--specially strengthened for a long and arduous voyage.
For a day and a night we were carried quietly along by the breeze, with
land still in sight. But with the next day's dawn the wind rose to a
gale, with a heavy sea and a dark sky; we found ourselves unable to take
in sail. We surrendered ourselves to the elements, let her run, and were
storm-driven for more than eleven weeks. On the eightieth day the sun
came out quite suddenly, and we found ourselves close to a lofty wooded
island, round which the waves were murmuring gently, the sea having
almost fallen by this time. We brought her to land, disembarked, and
after our long tossing lay a considerable time idle on shore; we at last
made a start, however, and leaving thirty of our number to guard the ship
I took the other twenty on a tour of inspection.
We had advanced half a mile inland through woods, when we came upon a
brazen pillar, inscribed in Greek characters--which however were worn and
dim--'Heracles and Dionysus reached this point.' Not far off were two
footprints on rock; one might have been an acre in area, the other being
smaller; and I conjecture that the latter was Dionysus's, and the other
Heracles's; we did obeisance, and proceeded. Before we had gone far, we
found ourselves on a river which ran wine; it was very like Chian; the
stream full and copious, even navigable in parts. This evidence of
Dionysus's sojourn was enough to convince us that the inscription on the
pillar was authentic. Resolving to find the source, I followed the river
up, and discovered, instead of a fountain, a number of huge vines covered
with grapes; from the root of each there issued a trickle of perfectly
clear wine, the joining of which made the river. It was well stocked with
great fish, resembling wine both in colour and taste; catching and eating
some, we at once found ourselves intoxicated; and indeed when opened the
fish were full of wine-lees; presently it occurred to us to mix them with
ordinary water fish, thus diluting the strength of our spirituous food.
We now crossed the river by a ford, and came to some vines of a most
extraordinary kind. Out of the ground came a thick well-grown stem; but
the upper part was a woman, complete from the loins upward. They were
like our painters' representations of Daphne in the act of turning into a
tree just as Apollo overtakes her. From the finger-tips sprang vine
twigs, all loaded with grapes; the hair of their heads was tendrils,
leaves, and grape-clusters. They greeted us and welcomed our approach,
talking Lydian, Indian, and Greek, most of them the last. They went so
far as to kiss us on the mouth; and whoever was kissed staggered like a
drunken man. But they would not permit us to pluck their fruit, meeting
the attempt with cries of pain. Some of them made further amorous
advances; and two of my comrades who yielded to these solicitations found
it impossible to extricate themselves again from their embraces; the man
became one plant with the vine, striking root beside it; his fingers
turned to vine twigs, the tendrils were all round him, and embryo grape-
clusters were already visible on him.
We left them there and hurried back to the ship, where we told our tale,
including our friends' experiment in viticulture. Then after taking some
casks ashore and filling them with wine and water we bivouacked near the
beach, and next morning set sail before a gentle breeze. But about
midday, when we were out of sight of the island, a waterspout suddenly
came upon us, which swept the ship round and up to a height of some three
hundred and fifty miles above the earth. She did not fall back into the
sea, but was suspended aloft, and at the same time carried along by a
wind which struck and filled the sails.
For a whole week we pursued our airy course, and on the eighth day
descried land; it was an island with air for sea, glistening, spherical,
and bathed in light. We reached it, cast anchor, and landed; inspection
soon showed that it was inhabited and cultivated. In the daytime nothing
could be discerned outside of it; but night revealed many neighbouring
islands, some larger and some smaller than ours; there was also another
land below us containing cities, rivers, seas, forests, and mountains;
and this we concluded to be our Earth.
We were intending to continue our voyage, when we were discovered and
detained by the Horse-vultures, as they are called. These are men mounted
on huge vultures, which they ride like horses; the great birds have
ordinarily three heads. It will give you some idea of their size if I
state that each of their quill-feathers is longer and thicker than the
mast of a large merchantman. This corps is charged with the duty of
patrolling the land, and bringing any strangers it may find to the king;
this was what was now done with us. The king surveyed us, and, forming
his conclusions from our dress, 'Strangers,' said he, 'you are Greeks,
are you not?' we assented. 'And how did you traverse this vast space of
air?' In answer we gave a full account of ourselves, to which he at once
replied with his own history. It seemed he too was a mortal, named
Endymion, who had been conveyed up from our Earth in his sleep, and after
his arrival had become king of the country; this was, he told us, what we
knew on our Earth as the moon. He bade us be of good cheer and entertain
no apprehensions; all our needs should be supplied.
'And if I am victorious,' he added, 'in the campaign which I am now
commencing against the inhabitants of the Sun, I promise you an extremely
pleasant life at my court.' We asked about the enemy, and the quarrel.
'Phaethon,' he replied, 'king of the Sun (which is inhabited, like the
Moon), has long been at war with us. The occasion was this: I wished at
one time to collect the poorest of my subjects and send them as a colony
to Lucifer, which is uninhabited. Phaethon took umbrage at this, met the
emigrants half way with a troop of Horse-ants, and forbade them to
proceed. On that occasion, being in inferior force, we were worsted and
had to retreat; but I now intend to take the offensive and send my
colony. I shall be glad if you will participate; I will provide your
equipment and mount you on vultures from the royal coops; the expedition
starts to-morrow.' I expressed our readiness to do his pleasure.
That day we were entertained by the king; in the morning we took our
place in the ranks as soon as we were up, our scouts having announced the
approach of the enemy. Our army numbered 100,000 (exclusive of camp-
followers, engineers, infantry, and allies), the Horse-vultures amounting
to 80,000, and the remaining 20,000 being mounted on Salad-wings. These
latter are also enormous birds, fledged with various herbs, and with
quill-feathers resembling lettuce leaves. Next these were the Millet-
throwers and the Garlic-men. Endymion had also a contingent from the
North of 30,000 Flea-archers and 50,000 Wind-coursers. The former have
their name from the great fleas, each of the bulk of a dozen elephants,
which they ride. The Wind-coursers are infantry, moving through the air
without wings; they effect this by so girding their shirts, which reach
to the ankle, that they hold the wind like a sail and propel their
wearers ship-fashion. These troops are usually employed as skirmishers.
70,000 Ostrich-slingers and 50,000 Horse-cranes were said to be on their
way from the stars over Cappadocia. But as they failed to arrive I did
not actually see them; and a description from hearsay I am not prepared
to give, as the marvels related of them put some strain on belief.
Such was Endymion's force. They were all armed alike; their helmets were
made of beans, which grow there of great size and hardness; the
breastplates were of overlapping lupine-husks sewn together, these husks
being as tough as horn; as to shields and swords, they were of the Greek
type.
When the time came, the array was as follows: on the right were the
Horse-vultures, and the King with the _elite_ of his forces,
including ourselves. The Salad-wings held the left, and in the centre
were the various allies. The infantry were in round numbers 60,000,000;
they were enabled to fall in thus: there are in the Moon great numbers of
gigantic spiders, considerably larger than an average Aegean island;
these were instructed to stretch webs across from the Moon to Lucifer; as
soon as the work was done, the King drew up his infantry on this
artificial plain, entrusting the command to Nightbat, son of Fairweather,
with two lieutenants.
On the enemy's side, Phaethon occupied the left with his Horse-ants; they
are great winged animals resembling our ants except in size; but the
largest of them would measure a couple of acres. The fighting was done
not only by their riders; they used their horns also; their numbers were
stated at 50,000. On their right was about an equal force of Sky-gnats--
archers mounted on great gnats; and next them the Sky-pirouetters, light-
armed infantry only, but of some military value; they slung monstrous
radishes at long range, a wound from which was almost immediately fatal,
turning to gangrene at once; they were supposed to anoint their missiles
with mallow juice. Next came the Stalk-fungi, 10,000 heavy-armed troops
for close quarters; the explanation of their name is that their shields
are mushrooms, and their spears asparagus stalks. Their neighbours were
the Dog-acorns, Phaethon's contingent from Sirius. These were 5,000 in
number, dog-faced men fighting on winged acorns. It was reported that
Phaethon too was disappointed of the slingers whom he had summoned from
the Milky Way, and of the Cloud-centaurs. These latter, however, arrived,
most unfortunately for us, after the battle was decided; the slingers
failed altogether, and are said to have felt the resentment of Phaethon,
who wasted their territory with fire. Such was the force brought by the
enemy.
As soon as the standards were raised and the asses on both sides (their
trumpeters) had brayed, the engagement commenced. The Sunite left at once
broke without awaiting the onset of the Horse-vultures, and we pursued,
slaying them. On the other hand, their right had the better of our left,
the Sky-gnats pressing on right up to our infantry. When these joined in,
however, they turned and fled, chiefly owing to the moral effect of our
success on the other flank. The rout became decisive, great numbers were
taken and slain, and blood flowed in great quantities on to the clouds,
staining them as red as we see them at sunset; much of it also dropped
earthwards, and suggested to me that it was possibly some ancient event
of the same kind which persuaded Homer that Zeus had rained blood at the
death of Sarpedon.
Relinquishing the pursuit, we set up two trophies, one for the infantry
engagement on the spiders' webs, and one on the clouds for the air-
battle. It was while we were thus engaged that our scouts announced the
approach of the Cloud-centaurs, whom Phaethon had expected in time for
the battle. They were indeed close upon us, and a strange sight, being
compounded of winged horses and men; the human part, from the middle
upwards, was as tall as the Colossus of Rhodes, and the equine the size
of a large merchantman. Their number I cannot bring myself to write down,
for fear of exciting incredulity. They were commanded by Sagittarius.
Finding their friends defeated, they sent a messenger after Phaethon to
bring him back, and, themselves in perfect order, charged the disarrayed
Moonites, who had left their ranks and were scattered in pursuit or
pillage; they routed the whole of them, chased the King home, and killed
the greater part of his birds; they tore up the trophies, and overran the
woven plain; I myself was taken, with two of my comrades. Phaethon now
arrived, and trophies were erected on the enemy's part. We were taken off
to the Sun the same day, our hands tied behind with a piece of the
cobweb.
They decided not to lay siege to the city; but after their return they
constructed a wall across the intervening space, cutting off the Sun's
rays from the Moon. This wall was double, and built of clouds; the
consequence was total eclipse of the Moon, which experienced a continuous
night. This severity forced Endymion to negotiate. He entreated that the
wall might be taken down, and his kingdom released from this life of
darkness; he offered to pay tribute, conclude an alliance, abstain from
hostilities in future, and give hostages for these engagements. The
Sunites held two assemblies on the question, in the first of which they
refused all concessions; on the second day, however, they relented, and
peace was concluded on the following terms.
Articles of peace between the Sunites and their allies of the one part,
and the Moonites and their allies of the other part.
1. The Sunites shall demolish the party-wall, shall make no further
incursion into the Moon, and shall hold their captives to ransom at a
fixed rate.
2. The Moonites shall restore to the other stars their autonomy, shall
not bear arms against the Sunites, and shall conclude with them a mutual
defensive alliance.
3. The King of the Moonites shall pay to the King of the Sunites,
annually, a tribute of ten thousand jars of dew, and give ten
thousand hostages of his subjects.
4. The high contracting parties shall found the colony of Lucifer in
common, and shall permit persons of any other nationality to join the
same.
5. These articles shall be engraved on a pillar of electrum, which shall
be set up on the border in mid-air.
Sworn to on behalf of the Sun by Firebrace, Heaton, and Flashman; and on
behalf of the Moon by Nightwell, Monday, and Shimmer.
Peace concluded, the removal of the wall and restoration of captives at
once followed. As we reached the Moon, we were met and welcomed by our
comrades and King Endymion, all weeping for joy. The King wished us to
remain and take part in founding the colony, and, women not existing in
the Moon, offered me his son in marriage. I refused, asking that we might
be sent down to the sea again; and finding that he could not prevail, he
entertained us for a week, and then sent us on our way.
I am now to put on record the novelties and singularities which attracted
my notice during our stay in the Moon.
When a man becomes old, he does not die, but dissolves in smoke into the
air. There is one universal diet; they light a fire, and in the embers
roast frogs, great numbers of which are always flying in the air; they
then sit round as at table, snuffing up the fumes which rise and serve
them for food; their drink is air compressed in a cup till it gives off a
moisture resembling dew. Beauty with them consists in a bald head and
hairless body; a good crop of hair is an abomination. On the comets, as I
was told by some of their inhabitants who were there on a visit, this is
reversed. They have beards, however, just above the knee; no toe-nails,
and but one toe on each foot. They are all tailed, the tail being a large
cabbage of an evergreen kind, which does not break if they fall upon it.
Their mucus is a pungent honey; and after hard work or exercise they
sweat milk all over, which a drop or two of the honey curdles into
cheese. The oil which they make from onions is very rich, and as fragrant
as balsam. They have an abundance of water-producing vines, the stones of
which resemble hailstones; and my own belief is that it is the shaking of
these vines by hurricanes, and the consequent bursting of the grapes,
that results in our hailstorms. They use the belly as a pouch in which to
keep necessaries, being able to open and shut it. It contains no
intestines or liver, only a soft hairy lining; their young, indeed, creep
into it for protection from cold.
The clothing of the wealthy is soft glass, and of the poor, woven brass;
the land is very rich in brass, which they work like wool after steeping
it in water. It is with some hesitation that I describe their eyes, the
thing being incredible enough to bring doubt upon my veracity. But the
fact is that these organs are removable; any one can take out his eyes
and do without till he wants them; then he has merely to put them in; I
have known many cases of people losing their own and borrowing at need;
and some--the rich, naturally--keep a large stock. Their ears are plane-
leaves, except with the breed raised from acorns; theirs being of wood.
Another marvel I saw in the palace. There is a large mirror suspended
over a well of no great depth; any one going down the well can hear every
word spoken on our Earth; and if he looks at the mirror, he sees every
city and nation as plainly as though he were standing close above each.
The time I was there, I surveyed my own people and the whole of my native
country; whether they saw me also, I cannot say for certain. Any one who
doubts the truth of this statement has only to go there himself, to be
assured of my veracity.
When the time came, we took our leave of King and court, got on board,
and weighed anchor. Endymion's parting gifts to me were two glass shirts,
five of brass, and a suit of lupine armour, all of which, however, I
afterwards left in the whale's belly; he also sent, as our escort for the
first fifty miles, a thousand of his Horse-vultures.
We passed on our way many countries, and actually landed on Lucifer, now
in process of settlement, to water. We then entered the Zodiac and passed
the Sun on the left, coasting close by it. My crew were very desirous of
landing, but the wind would not allow of this. We had a good view of the
country, however, and found it covered with vegetation, rich, well-
watered, and full of all good things. The Cloud-centaurs, now in
Phaethon's pay, espied us and pounced upon the ship, but left us alone
when they learned that we were parties to the treaty.
By this time our escort had gone home. We now took a downward course, and
twenty-four hours' sailing brought us to Lampton. This lies between the
atmospheres of the Pleiads and the Hyads, though in point of altitude it
is considerably lower than the Zodiac. When we landed, we found no human
beings, but numberless lamps bustling about or spending their time in the
market-place and harbour; some were small, and might represent the lower
classes, while a few, the great and powerful, were exceedingly bright and
conspicuous. They all had their own homes or lodgings, and their
individual names, like us; we heard them speak, and they did us no harm,
offering us entertainment, on the contrary; but we were under some
apprehension, and none of us accepted either food or bed. There is a
Government House in the middle of the city, where the Governor sits all
night long calling the roll-call; any one not answering to his name is
capitally punished as a deserter; that is to say, he is extinguished. We
were present and witnessed the proceedings, and heard lamps defending
their conduct and advancing reasons for their lateness. I there
recognized our own house lamp, accosted him, and asked for news of my
friends, in which he satisfied me. We stayed there that night, set sail
next morning, and found ourselves sailing, now, nearly as low as the
clouds. Here we were surprised to find Cloud-cuckoo-land; we were
prevented from landing by the direction of the wind, but learned that the
King's name was Crookbeak, son of Fitz-Ousel. I bethought me of
Aristophanes, the learned and veracious poet whose statements had met
with unmerited incredulity. Three days more, and we had a distinct view
of the Ocean, though there was no land visible except the islands
suspended in air; and these had now assumed a brilliant fiery hue. About
noon on the fourth day the wind slackened and fell, and we were deposited
upon the sea.
The joy and delight with which the touch of water affected us is
indescribable; transported at our good fortune, we flung ourselves
overboard and swam, the weather being calm and the sea smooth. Alas, how
often is a change for the better no more than the beginning of disaster!
We had but two days' delightful sail, and by the rising sun of the third
we beheld a crowd of whales and marine monsters, and among them one far
larger than the rest--some two hundred miles in length. It came on open-
mouthed, agitating the sea far in front, bathed in foam, and exhibiting
teeth whose length much surpassed the height of our great phallic images,
all pointed like sharp stakes and white as elephants' tusks. We gave each
other a last greeting, took a last embrace, and so awaited our doom. The
monster was upon us; it sucked us in; it swallowed ship and crew entire.
We escaped being ground by its teeth, the ship gliding in through the
interstices.
Inside, all was darkness at first, in which we could distinguish nothing;
but when it next opened its mouth, an enormous cavern was revealed, of
great extent and height; a city of ten thousand inhabitants might have
had room in it. Strewn about were small fish, the _disjecta membra_
of many kinds of animal, ships' masts and anchors, human bones, and
merchandise; in the centre was land with hillocks upon it, the alluvial
deposit, I supposed, from what the whale swallowed. This was wooded with
trees of all kinds, and vegetables were growing with all the appearance
of cultivation. The coast might have measured thirty miles round. Sea-
birds, such as gulls and halcyons, nested on the trees.
We spent some time weeping, but at last got our men up and had the ship
made fast, while we rubbed wood to get a fire and prepared a meal out of
the plentiful materials around us; there were fragments of various fish,
and the water we had taken in at Lucifer was unexhausted. Upon getting up
next day, we caught glimpses, as often as the whale opened his mouth, of
land, of mountains, it might be of the sky alone, or often of islands; we
realized that he was dashing at a great rate to every part of the sea. We
grew accustomed to our condition in time, and I then took seven of my
comrades and entered the wood in search of information. I had scarcely
gone half a mile when I came upon a shrine, which its inscription showed
to have been raised to Posidon; a little further were a number of graves
with pillars upon them, and close by a spring of clear water; we also
heard a dog bark, saw some distant smoke, and conjectured that there
must be a habitation.
We accordingly pressed on, and found ourselves in presence of an old man
and a younger one, who were working hard at a plot of ground and watering
it by a channel from the spring. We stood still, divided between fear and
delight. They were standing speechless, no doubt with much the same
feelings. At length the old man spoke:--'What are you, strangers; are you
spirits of the sea, or unfortunate mortals like ourselves? As for us, we
are men, bred on land; but now we have suffered a sea change, and swim
about in this containing monster, scarce knowing how to describe our
state; reason tells us we are dead, but instinct that we live.' This
loosed my tongue in turn. 'We too, father,' I said, 'are men, just
arrived; it is but a day or two since we were swallowed with our ship.
And now we have come forth to explore the forest; for we saw that it was
vast and dense. Methinks some heavenly guide has brought us to the sight
of you, to the knowledge that we are not prisoned all alone in this
monster. I pray you, let us know your tale, who you are and how you
entered.' Then he said that, before he asked or answered questions, he
must give us such entertainment as he could; so saying, he brought us to
his house--a sufficient dwelling furnished with beds and what else he
might need--, and set before us green-stuff and nuts and fish, with wine
for drink. When we had eaten our fill, he asked for our story. I told him
all as it had passed, the storm, the island, the airy voyage, the war,
and so to our descent into the whale.
It was very strange, he said, and then gave us his history in return. 'I
am a Cyprian, gentlemen. I left my native land on a trading voyage with
my son here and a number of servants. We had a fine ship, with a mixed
cargo for Italy; you may have seen the wreckage in the whale's mouth. We
had a fair voyage to Sicily, but on leaving it were caught in a gale, and
carried in three days out to the Atlantic, where we fell in with the
whale and were swallowed, ship and crew; of the latter we two alone
survived. We buried our men, built a temple to Posidon, and now live this
life, cultivating our garden, and feeding on fish and nuts. It is a great
wood, as you see, and in it are vines in plenty, from which we get
delicious wine; our spring you may have noticed; its water is of the
purest and coldest. We use leaves for bedding, keep a good fire, snare
the birds that fly in, and catch living fish by going out on the
monster's gills; it is there also that we take our bath when we are
disposed. There is moreover at no great distance a salt lake two or three
miles round, producing all sorts of fish; in this we swim and sail, in a
little boat of my building. It is now seven and twenty years since we
were swallowed.
'Our lot might have been endurable enough, but we have bad and
troublesome neighbours, unfriendly savages all.' 'What,' said I, 'are
there other inhabitants?' 'A great many,' he replied, 'inhospitable and
abhorrent to the sight. The western part of the wood (so to name the
caudal region) is occupied by the Stockfish tribe; they have eels' eyes
and lobster faces, are bold warriors, and eat their meat raw. Of the
sides of the cavern, the right belongs to the Tritonomendetes, who from
the waist upwards are human, and weazels below; their notions of justice
are slightly less rudimentary than the others'. The left is in possession
of the Crabhands and the Tunnyheads, two tribes in close alliance. The
central part is inhabited by the Crays and the Flounderfoots, the latter
warlike and extremely swift. As to this district near the mouth, the
East, as it were, it is in great part desert, owing to the frequent
inundations. I hold it of the Flounderfoots, paying an annual tribute of
five hundred oysters.
'Such is the land; and now it is for you to consider how we may make head
against all these tribes, and what shall be our manner of life.' 'What
may their numbers be, all told?' I asked. 'More than a thousand.' 'And
how armed?' 'They have no arms but fishbones.' 'Why then,' I said, 'let
us fight them by all means; we are armed, and they are not; and, if we
win, we shall live secure.' We agreed on this course, and returned to the
ship to make our preparations. The pretext for war was to be non-payment
of the tribute, which was on the point of falling due. Messengers, in
fact, shortly came to demand it, but the old man sent them about their
business with an insolent answer. The Flounderfoots and Crays were
enraged, and commenced operations with a tumultuous inroad upon
Scintharus--this was our old man's name.
Expecting this, we were awaiting the attack in full armour. We had put
five and twenty men in ambush, with directions to fall on the enemy's
rear as soon as they had passed; they executed their orders, and came on
from behind cutting them down, while the rest of us--five and twenty
also, including Scintharus and his son--met them face to face with a
spirited and resolute attack. It was risky work, but in the end we routed
and chased them to their dens. They left one hundred and seventy dead,
while we lost only our navigating officer, stabbed in the back with a
mullet rib, and one other.
We held the battlefield for the rest of that day and the night following,
and erected a trophy consisting of a dolphin's backbone upright. Next day
the news brought the other tribes out, with the Stockfish under a general
called Slimer on the right, the Tunnyheads on the left, and the Crabhands
in the centre; the Tritonomendetes stayed at home, preferring neutrality.
We did not wait to be attacked, but charged them near Posidon's temple
with loud shouts, which echoed as in a subterranean cave. Their want of
armour gave us the victory; we pursued them to the wood, and were
henceforth masters.
Soon after, they sent heralds to treat for recovery of their dead, and
for peace. But we decided to make no terms with them, and marching out
next day exterminated the whole, with the exception of the
Tritonomendetes. These too, when they saw what was going on, made a rush
for the gills, and cast themselves into the sea. We went over the
country, now clear of enemies, and occupied it from that time in
security. Our usual employments were exercise, hunting, vine-dressing,
and fruit-gathering; we were in the position of men in a vast prison from
which escape is out of the question, but within which they have luxury
and freedom of movement. This manner of life lasted for a year and eight
months.
It was on the fifth of the next month, about the second gape (the whale,
I should say, gaped regularly once an hour, and we reckoned time that
way)--about the second gape, then, a sudden shouting and tumult became
audible; it sounded like boatswains giving the time and oars beating.
Much excited, we crept right out into our monster's mouth, stood inside
the teeth, and beheld the most extraordinary spectacle I ever looked
upon--giants of a hundred yards in height rowing great islands as we do
triremes. I am aware that what I am to relate must sound improbable; but
I cannot help it. Very long islands they were, but of no great height;
the circumference of each would be about eleven miles; and its complement
of giants was some hundred and twenty. Of these some sat along each side
of the island, rowing with big cypresses, from which the branches and
leaves were not stripped; in the stern, so to speak, was a considerable
hillock, on which stood the helmsman with his hand on a brazen steering-
oar of half a mile in length; and on the deck forward were forty in
armour, the combatants; they resembled men except in their hair, which
was flaming fire, so that they could dispense with helmets. The work of
sails was done by the abundant forest on all the islands, which so caught
and held the wind that it drove them where the steersman wished; there
was a boatswain timing the stroke, and the islands jumped to it like
great galleys.
We had seen only two or three at first; but there appeared afterwards as
many as six hundred, which formed in two lines and commenced an action.
Many crashed into each other stem to stem, many were rammed and sunk,
others grappled, fought an obstinate duel, and could hardly get clear
after it. Great courage was shown by the troops on deck, who boarded and
dealt destruction, giving no quarter. Instead of grappling-irons, they
used huge captive squids, which they swung out on to the hostile island;
these grappled the wood and so held the island fast. Their missiles,
effective enough, were oysters the size of waggons, and sponges which
might cover an acre.
Aeolocentaur and Thalassopot were the names of the rival chiefs; and the
question between them was one of plunder; Thalassopot was supposed to
have driven off several herds of dolphins, the other's property; we could
hear them vociferating the charge and calling out their Kings' names.
Aeolocentaur's fleet finally won, sinking one hundred and fifty of the
enemy's islands and capturing three with their crews; the remainder
backed away, turned and fled. The victors pursued some way, but, as it
was now evening, returned to the disabled ones, secured most of the
enemy's, and recovered their own, of which as many as eighty had been
sunk. As a trophy of victory they slung one of the enemy's islands to a
stake which they planted in our whale's head. They lay moored round him
that night, attaching cables to him or anchoring hard by; they had vast
glass anchors, very strong. Next morning they sacrificed on the whale's
back, buried their dead there, and sailed off rejoicing, with something
corresponding to our paean. So ended the battle of the islands.
BOOK II
I now began to find life in the whale unendurable; I was tired to death
of it, and concentrated my thoughts on plans of escape. Our first idea
was to excavate a passage through the beast's right side, and go out
through it. We actually began boring, but gave it up when we had
penetrated half a mile without getting through. We then determined to set
fire to the forest, our object being the death of the whale, which would
remove all difficulties. We started burning from the tail end; but for a
whole week he made no sign; on the eighth and ninth days it was apparent
that he was unwell; his jaws opened only languidly, and each time closed
again very soon. On the tenth and eleventh days mortification had set in,
evidenced by a horrible stench; on the twelfth, it occurred to us, just
in time, that we must take the next occasion of the mouth's being open to
insert props between the upper and lower molars, and so prevent his
closing it; else we should be imprisoned and perish in the dead body. We
successfully used great beams for the purpose, and then got the ship
ready with all the water and provisions we could manage. Scintharus was
to navigate her. Next day the whale was dead.
We hauled the vessel up, brought her through one of the gaps, slung her
to the teeth, and so let her gently down to the water. We then ascended
the back, where we sacrificed to Posidon by the side of the trophy, and,
as there was no wind, encamped there for three days. On the fourth day we
were able to start. We found and came into contact with many corpses, the
relics of the sea-fight, and our wonder was heightened when we measured
them. For some days we enjoyed a moderate breeze, after which a violent
north wind rose, bringing hard frost; the whole sea was frozen--not
merely crusted over, but solidified to four hundred fathoms' depth; we
got out and walked about. The continuance of the wind making life
intolerable, we adopted the plan, suggested by Scintharus, of hewing an
extensive cavern in the ice, in which we stayed a month, lighting fires
and feeding on fish; we had only to dig these out. In the end, however,
provisions ran short, and we came out; the ship was frozen in, but we got
her free; we then hoisted sail, and were carried along as well as if we
had been afloat, gliding smoothly and easily over the ice. After five
days more the temperature rose, a thaw set in, and all was water again.
A stretch of five and thirty miles brought us to a small desert isle,
where we got water--of which we were now in want--, and shot two wild
bulls before we departed. These animals had their horns not on the top of
the head, but, as Momus recommended, below the eyes. Not long after this,
we entered a sea of milk, in which we observed an island, white in
colour, and full of vines. The island was one great cheese, quite firm,
as we afterwards ascertained by eating it, and three miles round. The
vines were covered with fruit, but the drink we squeezed from it was milk
instead of wine. In the centre of the island was a temple to Galatea the
Nereid, as the inscription informed us. During our stay there, the ground
itself served us for bread and meat, and the vine-milk for drink. We
learned that the queen of these regions was Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus,
on whom Posidon had conferred this dignity at her decease.
After spending five days there we started again with a gentle breeze and
a rippling sea. A few days later, when we had emerged from the milk into
blue salt water, we saw numbers of men walking on the sea; they were like
ourselves in shape and stature, with the one exception of the feet, which
were of cork; whence, no doubt, their name of Corksoles. It struck us as
curious that they did not sink in, but travelled quite comfortably clear
of the water. Some of them came up and hailed us in Greek, saying that
they were making their way to their native land of Cork. They ran
alongside for some distance, and then turned off and went their own way,
wishing us a pleasant voyage. A little further we saw several islands;
close to us on the left was Cork, our friends' destination, consisting of
a city founded on a vast round cork; at a greater distance, and a little
to the right, were five others of considerable size and high out of the
water, with great flames rising from them.
There was also a broad low one, as much as sixty miles in length,
straight in our course. As we drew near it, a marvellous air was wafted
to us, exquisitely fragrant, like the scent which Herodotus describes as
coming from Arabia Felix. Its sweetness seemed compounded of rose,
narcissus, hyacinth, lilies and violets, myrtle and bay and flowering
vine. Ravished with the perfume, and hoping for reward of our long toils,
we drew slowly near. Then were unfolded to us haven after haven, spacious
and sheltered, and crystal rivers flowing placidly to the sea. There were
meadows and groves and sweet birds, some singing on the shore, some on
the branches; the whole bathed in limpid balmy air. Sweet zephyrs just
stirred the woods with their breath, and brought whispering melody,
delicious, incessant, from the swaying branches; it was like Pan-pipes
heard in a desert place. And with it all there mingled a volume of human
sound, a sound not of tumult, but rather of revels where some flute, and
some praise the fluting, and some clap their hands commending flute or
harp.
Drawn by the spell of it we came to land, moored the ship, and left her,
in charge of Scintharus and two others. Taking our way through flowery
meadows we came upon the guardians of the peace, who bound us with rose-
garlands--their strongest fetters--and brought us to the governor. As we
went they told us this was the island called of the Blest, and its
governor the Cretan Rhadamanthus. When we reached the court, we found
there were three cases to be taken before our turn would come.
The first was that of Ajax, son of Telamon, and the question was whether
he was to be admitted to the company of Heroes; it was objected that he
had been mad and taken his own life. After long pleadings Rhadamanthus
gave his decision: he was to be put under the charge of Hippocrates the
physician of Cos for the hellebore treatment, and, when he had recovered
his wits, to be made free of the table.
The second was a matrimonial case, the parties Theseus and Menelaus, and
the issue possession of Helen. Rhadamanthus gave it in favour of
Menelaus, on the ground of the great toils and dangers the match had cost
him--added to the fact that Theseus was provided with other wives in the
Amazon queen and the daughters of Minos.
The third was a dispute for precedence between Alexander son of Philip
and Hannibal the Carthaginian; it was won by the former, who had a seat
assigned him next to Cyrus the elder.
It was now our turn. The judge asked by what right we set foot on this
holy ground while yet alive. In answer we related our story. He then had
us removed while he held a long consultation with his numerous assessors,
among whom was the Athenian Aristides the Just. He finally reached a
conclusion and gave judgement: on the charges of curiosity and travelling
we were remanded till the date of our deaths; for the present we were to
stay in the island, with admission to the Heroic society, for a fixed
term, after which we must depart. The limit he appointed for our stay was
seven months.
Our rose-chains now fell off of their own accord, we were released and
taken into the city, and to the Table of the Blest. The whole of this
city is built of gold, and the enclosing wall of emerald. It has seven
gates, each made of a single cinnamon plank. The foundations of the
houses, and all ground inside the wall, are ivory; temples are built of
beryl, and each contains an altar of one amethyst block, on which they
offer hecatombs. Round the city flows a river of the finest perfume, a
hundred royal cubits in breadth, and fifty deep, so that there is good
swimming. The baths, supplied with warm dew instead of ordinary water,
are in great crystal domes heated with cinnamon wood.
Their raiment is fine cobweb, purple in colour. They have no bodies, but
are intangible and unsubstantial--mere form without matter; but, though
incorporeal, they stand and move, think and speak; in short, each is a
naked soul, but carries about the semblance of body; one who did not
touch them would never know that what he looked at was not substantial;
they are shadows, but upright, and coloured. A man there does not grow
old, but stays at whatever age he brought with him. There is no night,
nor yet bright day; the morning twilight, just before sunrise, gives the
best idea of the light that prevails. They have also but one season,
perpetual spring, and the wind is always in the west.
The country abounds in every kind of flower, in shrubs and garden herbs.
There are twelve vintages in the year, the grapes ripening every month;
and they told us that pomegranates, apples, and other fruits were
gathered thirteen times, the trees producing twice in their month Minous.
Instead of grain, the corn develops loaves, shaped like mushrooms, at the
top of the stalks. Round the city are 365 springs of water, the same of
honey, and 500, less in volume however, of perfume. There are also seven
rivers of milk and eight of wine.
The banqueting-place is arranged outside the city in the Elysian Plain.
It is a fair lawn closed in with thick-grown trees of every kind, in the
shadow of which the guests recline, on cushions of flowers. The waiting
and handing is done by the winds, except only the filling of the wine-
cup. That is a service not required; for all round stand great trees of
pellucid crystal, whose fruit is drinking-cups of every shape and size. A
guest arriving plucks a cup or two and sets them at his place, where they
at once fill with wine. So for their drink; and instead of garlands, the
nightingales and other singing birds pick flowers with their beaks from
the meadows round, and fly over snowing the petals down and singing the
while. Nor is perfume forgotten; thick clouds draw it up from the springs
and river, and hanging overhead are gently squeezed by the winds till
they spray it down in fine dew.
During the meal there is music and song. In the latter kind, Homer's
verse is the favourite; he is himself a member of the festal company,
reclining next above Odysseus. The choirs are of boys and girls,
conducted and led by Eunomus the Locrian, Arion of Lesbos, Anacreon and
Stesichorus; this last had made his peace with Helen, and I saw him
there. When these have finished, a second choir succeeds, of swans and
swallows and nightingales; and when their turn is done, all the trees
begin to pipe, conducted by the winds.
I have still to add the most important element in their good cheer: there
are two springs hard by, called the Fountain of Laughter, and the
Fountain of Delight. They all take a draught of both these before the
banquet begins, after which the time goes merrily and sweetly.
I should now like to name the famous persons I saw. To begin with, all
the demi-gods, and the besiegers of Troy, with the exception of Ajax the
Locrian; he, they said, was undergoing punishment in the place of the
wicked. Of barbarians there were the two Cyruses, Anacharsis the
Scythian, Zamolxis the Thracian, and the Latin Numa; and then Lycurgus
the Spartan, Phocion and Tellus of Athens, and the Wise Men, but without
Periander. And I saw Socrates son of Sophroniscus in converse with Nestor
and Palamedes; clustered round him were Hyacinth the Spartan, Narcissus
of Thespiae, Hylas, and many another comely boy. With Hyacinth I
suspected that he was in love; at least he was for ever poking questions
at him. I heard that Rhadamanthus was dissatisfied with Socrates, and had
several times threatened him with expulsion, if he insisted on talking
nonsense, and would not drop his irony and enjoy himself. Plato was the
only one I missed, but I was told that he was living in his own Utopia,
working the constitution and laws which he had drawn up.
For popularity, Aristippus and Epicurus bore the palm, in virtue of their
kindliness, sociability, and good-fellowship. Aesop the Phrygian was
there, and held the office of jester. Diogenes of Sinope was much
changed; he had married Lais the courtesan, and often in his cups would
oblige the company with a dance, or other mad pranks. The Stoics were not
represented at all; they were supposed to be still climbing the steep
hill of Virtue; and as to Chrysippus himself, we were told that he was
not to set foot on the island till he had taken a fourth course of
hellebore. The Academics contemplated coming, but were taking time for
consideration; they could not yet regard it as a certainty that any such
island existed. There was probably the added difficulty that they were
not comfortable about the judgement of Rhadamanthus, having themselves
disputed the possibility of judgement. It was stated that many of them
had started to follow persons travelling to the island, but, their energy
failing, had abandoned the journey half-way and gone back.
I have mentioned the most noteworthy of the company, and add that the
most highly respected among them are, first Achilles, and second Theseus.
Before many days had passed, I accosted the poet Homer, when we were both
disengaged, and asked him, among other things, where he came from; it was
still a burning question with us, I explained. He said he was aware that
some brought him from Chios, others from Smyrna, and others again from
Colophon; the fact was, he was a Babylonian, generally known not as
Homer, but as Tigranes; but when later in life he was given as a
_homer_ or hostage to the Greeks, that name clung to him. Another of
my questions was about the so-called spurious lines; had he written them,
or not? He said they were all genuine; so I now knew what to think of the
critics Zenodotus and Aristarchus, and all their lucubrations. Having got
a categorical answer on that point, I tried him next on his reason for
starting the Iliad at the wrath of Achilles; he said he had no exquisite
reason; it had just come into his head that way. Another thing I wanted
to know was whether he had composed the Odyssey before the Iliad, as
generally believed. He said this was not so. As to his reported
blindness, I did not need to ask; he had his sight, so there was an end
of that. It became a habit of mine, whenever I saw him at leisure, to go
up and ask him things, and he answered quite readily--especially after
his acquittal; a libel suit had been brought against him by Thersites, on
the ground of the ridicule to which he is subjected in the poem; Homer
had briefed Odysseus, and been acquitted.
It was during our sojourn that Pythagoras arrived; he had undergone seven
transmigrations, lived the lives of that number of animals, and completed
his psychic travels. It was the entire right half of him that was gold.
He was at once given the franchise, but the question was still pending
whether he was to be known as Pythagoras or Euphorbus. Empedocles also
came, scorched all over and baked right through; but not all his
entreaties could gain him admittance.
The progress of time brought round the Games of the Dead. The umpires
were Achilles, holding that office for the fifth, and Theseus for the
seventh time. A full report would take too long; but I will summarize the
events. The wrestling went to Carus the Heraclid, who won the garland
from Odysseus. The boxing resulted in a tie; the pair being the Egyptian
Areus, whose grave is in Corinth, and Epeus. For mixed boxing and
wrestling they have no prize. Who won the flat race, I have forgotten. In
poetry, Homer really did much the best, but the award was for Hesiod. All
prizes were plaited wreaths of peacock feathers.
Just after the Games were over, news came that the Damned had broken
their fetters, overpowered their guard, and were on the point of invading
the island, the ringleaders being Phalaris of Agrigentum, Busiris the
Egyptian, Diomedes the Thracian, Sciron, and Pityocamptes. Rhadamanthus
at once drew up the Heroes on the beach, giving the command to Theseus,
Achilles, and Ajax Telamonius, now in his right senses. The battle was
fought, and won by the Heroes, thanks especially to Achilles. Socrates,
who was in the right wing, distinguished himself still more than in his
lifetime at Delium, standing firm and showing no sign of trepidation as
the enemy came on; he was afterwards given as a reward of valour a large
and beautiful park in the outskirts, to which he invited his friends for
conversation, naming it the Post-mortem Academy.
The defeated party were seized, re-fettered, and sent back for severer
torments. Homer added to his poems a description of this battle, and at
my departure handed me the MS. to bring back to the living world; but it
was unfortunately lost with our other property. It began with the line:
Tell now, my Muse, how fought the mighty Dead.
According to their custom after successful war, they boiled beans, held
the feast of victory, and kept high holiday. From this Pythagoras alone
held aloof, fasting and sitting far off, in sign of his abhorrence of
bean-eating.
We were in the middle of our seventh month, when an incident happened.
Scintharus's son, Cinyras, a fine figure of a man, had fallen in love
with Helen some time before, and it was obvious that she was very much
taken with the young fellow; there used to be nods and becks and takings
of wine between them at table, and they would go off by themselves for
strolls in the wood. At last love and despair inspired Cinyras with the
idea of an elopement. Helen consented, and they were to fly to one of the
neighbouring islands, Cork or Cheese Island. They had taken three of the
boldest of my crew into their confidence; Cinyras said not a word to his
father, knowing that he would put a stop to it. The plan was carried out;
under cover of night, and in my absence--I had fallen asleep at table--,
they got Helen away unobserved and rowed off as hard as they could.
About midnight Menelaus woke up, and finding his wife's place empty
raised an alarm, and got his brother to go with him to King Rhadamanthus.
Just before dawn the look-outs announced that they could make out the
boat, far out at sea. So Rhadamanthus sent fifty of the Heroes on board a
boat hollowed out of an asphodel trunk, with orders to give chase.
Pulling their best, they overtook the fugitives at noon, as they were
entering the milky sea near the Isle of Cheese; so nearly was the escape
effected. The boat was towed back with a chain of roses. Helen shed
tears, and so felt her situation as to draw a veil over her face. As to
Cinyras and his associates, Rhadamanthus interrogated them to find
whether they had more accomplices, and, being assured to the contrary,
had them whipped with mallow twigs, bound, and dismissed to the place of
the wicked.
It was further determined that we should be expelled prematurely from the
island; we were allowed only one day's grace. This drew from me loud
laments and tears for the bliss that I was now to exchange for renewed
wanderings. They consoled me for their sentence, however, by telling me
that it would not be many years before I should return to them, and
assigning me my chair and my place at table--a distinguished one--in
anticipation. I then went to Rhadamanthus, and was urgent with him to
reveal the future to me, and give me directions for our voyage. He told
me that I should come to my native land after many wanderings and perils,
but as to the time of my return he would give me no certainty. He
pointed, however, to the neighbouring islands, of which five were
visible, besides one more distant, and informed me that the wicked
inhabited these, the near ones, that is, 'from which you see the great
flames rising; the sixth yonder is the City of Dreams; and beyond that
again, but not visible at this distance, is Calypso's isle. When you have
passed these, you will come to the great continent which is opposite your
own; there you will have many adventures, traverse divers tribes, sojourn
among inhospitable men, and at last reach your own continent.' That was
all he would say.
But he pulled up a mallow root and handed it to me, bidding me invoke it
at times of greatest danger. When I arrived in this world, he charged me
to abstain from stirring fire with a knife, from lupines, and from the
society of boys over eighteen; these things if I kept in mind, I might
look for return to the island. That day I made ready for our voyage, and
when the banquet hour came, I shared it. On the morrow I went to the poet
Homer and besought him to write me a couplet for inscription; when he had
done it, I carved it on a beryl pillar which I had set up close to the
harbour; it ran thus:
This island, ere he took his homeward way,
The blissful Gods gave Lucian to survey.
I stayed out that day too, and next morning started, the Heroes attending
to see me off. Odysseus took the opportunity to come unobserved by
Penelope and give me a letter for Calypso in the isle Ogygia.
Rhadamanthus sent on board with me the ferryman Nauplius, who, in case we
were driven on to the islands, might secure us from seizure by
guaranteeing that our destination was different. As soon as our progress
brought us out of the scented air, it was succeeded by a horrible smell
as of bitumen, brimstone, and pitch all burning together; mingled with
this were the disgusting and intolerable fumes of roasting human flesh;
the air was dark and thick, distilling a pitchy dew upon us; we could
also hear the crack of whips and the yelling of many voices.
We only touched at one island, on which we also landed. It was completely
surrounded by precipitous cliffs, arid, stony, rugged, treeless,
unwatered. We contrived to clamber up the rocks, and advanced along a
track beset with thorns and snags--a hideous scene. When we reached the
prison and the place of punishment, what first drew our wonder was the
character of the whole. The very ground stood thick with a crop of knife-
blades and pointed stakes; and it was ringed round with rivers, one of
slime, a second of blood, and the innermost of flame. This last was very
broad and quite impassable; the flame flowed like water, swelled like the
sea, and teemed with fish, some resembling firebrands, and others, the
small ones, live coals; these were called lamplets.
One narrow way led across all three; its gate was kept by Timon of
Athens. Nauplius secured us admission, however, and then we saw the
chastisement of many kings, and many common men; some were known to us;
indeed there hung Cinyras, swinging in eddies of smoke. Our guides
described the life and guilt of each culprit; the severest torments were
reserved for those who in life had been liars and written false history;
the class was numerous, and included Ctesias of Cnidus, and Herodotus.
The fact was an encouragement to me, knowing that I had never told a lie.
I soon found the sight more than I could bear, and returning to the ship
bade farewell to Nauplius and resumed the voyage. Very soon we seemed
quite close to the Isle of Dreams, though there was a certain dimness and
vagueness about its outline; but it had something dreamlike in its very
nature; for as we approached it receded, and seemed to get further and
further off. At last we reached it and sailed into Slumber, the port,
close to the ivory gates where stands the temple of the Cock. It was
evening when we landed, and upon proceeding to the city we saw many
strange dreams. But I intend first to describe the city, as it has not
been done before; Homer indeed mentions it, but gives no detailed
description.
The whole place is embowered in wood, of which the trees are poppy and
mandragora, all thronged with bats; this is the only winged thing that
exists there. A river, called the Somnambule, flows close by, and there
are two springs at the gates, one called Wakenot, and the other
Nightlong. The rampart is lofty and of many colours, in the rainbow
style. The gates are not two, as Homer says, but four, of which two look
on to the plain Stupor; one of them is of iron, the other of pottery, and
we were told that these are used by the grim, the murderous, and the
cruel. The other pair face the sea and port, and are of horn--it was by
this that we had entered--and of ivory. On the right as you enter the
city stands the temple of Night, which deity divides with the Cock their
chief allegiance; the temple of the latter is close to the port. On the
left is the palace of Sleep. He is the governor, with two lieutenants,
Nightmare, son of Whimsy, and Flittergold, son of Fantasy. A well in the
middle of the market-place goes by the name of Heavyhead; beside which
are the temples of Deceit and Truth. In the market also is the shrine in
which oracles are given, the priest and prophet, by special appointment
from Sleep, being Antiphon the dream-interpreter.
The dreams themselves differed widely in character and appearance. Some
were well-grown, smooth-skinned, shapely, handsome fellows, others rough,
short, and ugly; some apparently made of gold, others of common cheap
stuff. Among them some were found with wings, and other strange
variations; others again were like the mummers in a pageant, tricked out
as kings or Gods or what not. Many of them we felt that we had seen in
our world, and sure enough these came up and claimed us as old
acquaintance; they took us under their charge, found us lodgings,
entertained us with lavish kindness, and, not content with the
magnificence of this present reception, promised us royalties and
provinces. Some of them also took us to see our friends, doing the return
trip all in the day.
For thirty days and nights we abode there--a very feast of sleep. Then on
a sudden came a mighty clap of thunder: we woke; jumped up; provisioned;
put off. In three days we were at the Isle of Ogygia, where we landed.
Before delivering the letter, I opened and read it; here are the
contents: _ODYSSEUS TO CALYPSO, GREETING. Know that in the faraway days
when I built my raft and sailed away from you, I suffered shipwreck; I
was hard put to it, but Leucothea brought me safe to the land of the
Phaeacians; they gave me passage home, and there I found a great company
suing for my wife's hand and living riotously upon our goods. All them I
slew, and in after years was slain by Telegonus, the son that Circe bare
me. And now I am in the Island of the Blest, ruing the day when I left
the life I had with you, and the everlasting life you proffered. I watch
for opportunity, and meditate escape and return_. Some words were
added, commending us to her hospitality.
A little way from the sea I found the cave just as it is in Homer, and
herself therein at her spinning. She took and read the letter, wept for a
space, and then offered us entertainment; royally she feasted us, putting
questions the while about Odysseus and Penelope; what were her looks? and
was she as discreet as Odysseus had been used to vaunt her? To which we
made such answers as we thought she would like.
Leaving her, we went on board, and spent the night at anchor just off
shore; in the morning we started with a stiff breeze, which grew to a
gale lasting two days; on the third day we fell in with the Pumpkin-
pirates. These are savages of the neighbouring islands who prey upon
passing ships. They use large boats made of pumpkins ninety feet long.
The pumpkin is dried and hollowed out by removal of the pulp, and the
boat is completed by the addition of cane masts and pumpkin-leaf sails.
Two boatfuls of them engaged us, and we had many casualties from their
pumpkin-seed missiles. The fight was long and well matched; but about
noon we saw a squadron of Nut-tars coming up in rear of the enemy. It
turned out that the two parties were at war; for as soon as our
assailants observed the others, they left us alone and turned to engage
them.
Meanwhile we hoisted sail and made the best of our way off, leaving them
to fight it out. It was clear that the Nut-tars must win, as they had
both superior numbers--there were five sail of them--and stronger
vessels. These were made of nutshells, halved and emptied, measuring
ninety feet from stem to stern. As soon as they were hull down, we
attended to our wounded; and from that time we made a practice of keeping
on our armour, to be in instant readiness for an attack--no vain
precaution either.
Before sunset, for instance, there assailed us from a bare island some
twenty men mounted on large dolphins--pirates again. Their dolphins
carried them quite well, curvetting and neighing. When they got near,
they divided, and subjected us to a cross fire of dry cuttlefish and
crabs' eyes. But our arrows and javelins were too much for them, and
they fled back to the island, few of them unwounded.
At midnight, in calm weather, we found ourselves colliding with an
enormous halcyon's nest; it was full seven miles round. The halcyon was
brooding, not much smaller herself than the nest. She got up, and very
nearly capsized us with the fanning of her wings; however, she went off
with a melancholy cry. When it was getting light, we got on to the nest,
and found on examination that it was composed like a vast raft of large
trees. There were five hundred eggs, larger in girth than a tun of Chian.
We could make out the chicks inside and hear them croaking; we hewed open
one egg with hatchets, and dug out an unfledged chick bulkier than twenty
vultures.
Sailing on, we had left the nest some five and twenty miles behind, when
a miracle happened. The wooden goose of our stern-post suddenly clapped
its wings and started cackling; Scintharus, who was bald, recovered his
hair; most striking of all, the ship's mast came to life, putting forth
branches sideways, and fruit at the top; this fruit was figs, and a bunch
of black grapes, not yet ripe. These sights naturally disturbed us, and
we fell to praying the Gods to avert any disaster they might portend.
We had proceeded something less than fifty miles when we saw a great
forest, thick with pines and cypresses. This we took for the mainland;
but it was in fact deep sea, set with trees; they had no roots, but yet
remained in their places, floating upright, as it were. When we came near
and realized the state of the case, we could not tell what to do; it was
impossible to sail between the trees, which were so close as to touch one
another, and we did not like the thought of turning back. I climbed the
tallest tree to get a good view, and found that the wood was five or six
miles across, and was succeeded by open water. So we determined to hoist
the ship on to the top of the foliage, which was very dense, and get her
across to the other sea, if possible. It proved to be so. We attached a
strong cable, got up on the tree-tops, and hauled her after us with some
difficulty; then we laid her on the branches, hoisted sail, and floating
thus were propelled by the wind. A line of Antimachus came into my head:
And as they voyaged thus the woodland through--
Well, we made our way over and reached the water, into which we let her
down in the same way. We then sailed through clear transparent sea, till
we found ourselves on the edge of a great gorge which divided water from
water, like the land fissures which are often produced by earthquakes. We
got the sails down and brought her to just in time to escape making the
plunge. We could bend over and see an awful mysterious gulf perhaps a
hundred miles deep, the water standing wall against wall. A glance round
showed us not far off to the right a water bridge which spanned the
chasm, and gave a moving surface crossing from one sea to the other. We
got out the sweeps, pulled her to the bridge, and with great exertions
effected that astonishing passage.
There followed a sail through smooth water, and then a small island, easy
of approach, and inhabited; its occupants were the Ox-heads, savage men
with horns, after the fashion of our poets' Minotaur. We landed and went
in search of water and provisions, of which we were now in want. The
water we found easily, but nothing else; we heard, however, not far off,
a numerous lowing; supposing it to indicate a herd of cows, we went a
little way towards it, and came upon these men. They gave chase as soon
as they saw us, and seized three of my comrades, the rest of us getting
off to sea. We then armed--for we would not leave our friends unavenged--
and in full force fell on the Ox-heads as they were dividing our
slaughtered men's flesh. Our combined shout put them to flight, and in
the pursuit we killed about fifty, took two alive, and returned with our
captives. We had found nothing to eat; the general opinion was for
slaughtering the prisoners; but I refused to accede to this, and kept
them in bonds till an embassy came from the Ox-heads to ransom them; so
we understood the motions they made, and their tearful supplicatory
lowings. The ransom consisted of a quantity of cheese, dried fish,
onions, and four deer; these were three-footed, the two forefeet being
joined into one. In exchange for all this we restored the prisoners, and
after one day's further stay departed.
By this time we were beginning to observe fish, birds on the wing, and
other signs of land not far off; and we shortly saw men, practising a
mode of navigation new to us; for they were boat and crew in one. The
method was this: they float on their backs, erect a sail, and then,
holding the sheets with their hands, catch the wind. These were succeeded
by others who sat on corks, to which were harnessed pairs of dolphins,
driven with reins. They neither attacked nor avoided us, but drove along
in all confidence and peace, admiring the shape of our craft and
examining it all round.
That evening we touched at an island of no great size. It was occupied by
what we took for women, talking Greek. They came and greeted us with
kisses, were attired like courtesans, all young and fair, and with long
robes sweeping the ground. Cabbalusa was the name of the island, and
Hydramardia the city's. These women paired off with us and led the way to
their separate homes. I myself tarried a little, under the influence of
some presentiment, and looking more closely observed quantities of human
bones and skulls lying about. I did not care to raise an alarm, gather my
men, and resort to arms; instead, I drew out my mallow, and prayed
earnestly to it for escape from our perilous position. Shortly after, as
my hostess was serving me, I saw that in place of human feet she had
ass's hoofs; whereupon I drew my sword, seized, bound, and closely
questioned her. Reluctantly enough she had to confess; they were sea-
women called Ass-shanks, and their food was travellers. 'When we have
made them drunk,' she said, 'and gone to rest with them, we overpower
them in their sleep.' After this confession I left her there bound, went
up on to the roof, and shouted for my comrades. When they appeared, I
repeated it all to them, showed them the bones, and brought them in to
see my prisoner; she at once vanished, turning to water; however, I
thrust my sword into this experimentally, upon which the water became
blood.
Then we marched hurriedly down to our ship and sailed away. With the
first glimmering of dawn we made out a mainland, which we took for the
continent that faces our own. We reverently saluted it, made prayer, and
held counsel upon our best course. Some were for merely landing and
turning back at once, others for leaving the ship, and going into the
interior to make trial of the inhabitants. But while we were
deliberating, a great storm arose, which dashed us, a complete wreck, on
the shore. We managed to swim to land, each snatching up his arms and
anything else he could.
Such are the adventures that befell me up to our arrival at that other
continent: our sea-voyage; our cruise among the islands and in the air;
then our experiences in and after the whale; with the Heroes; with the
dreams; and finally with the Ox-heads and the Ass-shanks. Our fortunes on
the continent will be the subject of the following books.
THE TYRANNICIDE
_A man forces his way into the stronghold of a tyrant, with the
intention of killing him. Not finding the tyrant himself, he kills his
son, and leaves the sword sticking in his body. The tyrant, coming, and
finding his son dead, slays himself with the same sword.--The assailant
now claims that the killing of the son entitles him to the reward of
tyrannicide._
Two tyrants--a father advanced in years, a son in the prime of life,
waiting only to step into his nefarious heritage--have fallen by my hand
on a single day: I come before this court, claiming but one reward for my
twofold service. My case is unique. With one blow I have rid you of two
monsters: with my sword I slew the son; grief for the son slew the
father. The misdeeds of the tyrant are sufficiently punished: he has
lived to see his son perish untimely; and--wondrous sequel!--the tyrant's
own hand has freed us from tyranny. I slew the son, and used his death to
slay another: in his life he shared the iniquities of his father; in his
death, so far as in him lay, he was a parricide. Mine is the hand that
freed you, mine the sword that accomplished all: as to the order and
manner of procedure, there, indeed, I have deviated from the common
practice of tyrannicides: I slew the son, who had strength to resist me,
and left my sword to deal with the aged father. In acting thus, I had
thought to increase your obligation to me; a twofold deliverance--I had
supposed--would entitle me to a twofold reward; for I have freed you not
from tyranny alone, but from the fear of tyranny, and by removing the
heir of iniquity have made your salvation sure. And now it seems that my
services are to go for nothing; I, the preserver of the constitution, am
to forgo the recompense prescribed by its laws. It is surely from no
patriotic motive, as he asserts, that my adversary disputes my claim;
rather it is from grief at the loss of the tyrants, and a desire to
avenge their death.
Bear with me, gentlemen, for a little, while I dwell in some detail upon
those evils of tyranny with which you are only too familiar; I shall thus
enable you to realize the extent of my services, and to enjoy the
contemplation of sufferings from which you have escaped. Ours was not the
common experience: we had not _one_ tyranny, _one_ servitude to
endure, we were not subjected to the caprice of a single master. Other
cities have had their tyrant: it was reserved for us to have two tyrants
at once, to groan beneath a double oppression. That of the old man was
light by comparison, his anger mildness, his resentment long-suffering;
age had blunted his passions, checked their headlong impetus, and curbed
the lust of pleasure. His crimes, so it is said, were involuntary;
resulting from no tyrannical disposition in himself, but from the
instigations of his son. For in him paternal affection had too clearly
become a mania; his son was all in all to him; he did his bidding,
committed every crime at his pleasure, dealt out punishment at his
command, was subservient to him in all things; the minister of a tyrant's
caprice, and that tyrant his son. The young man left him in possession of
the name and semblance of rule; so much he conceded to his years: but in
all essentials _he_ was the real tyrant. By him the power of the
tyrant was upheld; by him and by him alone the fruits of tyranny were
gathered. He it was who maintained the garrison, intimidated the victims
of oppression, and butchered those who meditated resistance; who laid
violent hands on boys and maidens, and trampled on the sanctity of
marriage. Murder, banishment, confiscation, torture, brutality; all
bespeak the wantonness of youth. The father followed his son's lead, and
had no word of blame for the crimes in which he participated. Our
situation became unbearable: for when the promptings of passion draw
support from the authority of rule, then iniquity knows no further
bounds.
We knew moreover (and here was the bitterest thought of all) that our
servitude must endure--ay, endure for ever; that our city was doomed to
pass in unending succession from master to master, to be the heritage of
the oppressor. To others it is no small consolation that they may count
the days, and say in their hearts: 'The end will be soon; he will die,
and we shall be free.' We had no such hope: there stood the heir of
tyranny before our eyes. There were others--men of spirit--who cherished
like designs with myself; yet all lacked resolution to strike the blow;
freedom was despaired of; to contend against a succession of tyrants
seemed a hopeless task.
Yet I was not deterred. I had reckoned the difficulties of my
undertaking, and shrank not back, but faced the danger. Alone, I issued
forth to cope with tyranny in all its might. Alone, did I say? nay, not
alone; I had my sword for company, my ally and partner in tyrannicide. I
saw what the end was like to be: and, seeing it, resolved to purchase
your freedom with my blood. I grappled with the outer watch, with
difficulty routed the guards, slew all I met, broke down all resistance,
--and so to the fountain-head, the well-spring of tyranny, the source of
all our calamities; within his stronghold I found him, and there slew him
with many wounds, fighting valiantly for his life.
From that moment, my end was gained: tyranny was destroyed; we were free
men. There remained the aged father, alone, unarmed, desolate; his guards
scattered, his strong protector slain; no adversary this for a brave man.
And now I debated within myself: 'My work is done, my aim achieved, all
is as I would have it. And how shall this remnant of tyranny be punished?
He is unworthy of the hand that shed that other blood: the glory of a
noble enterprise shall not be so denied. No, let some other executioner
be found. It were too much happiness for him to die, and never know the
worst; let him see all, for his punishment, and let the sword be ready to
his hand; to that sword I leave the rest.' In this design I withdrew; and
the sword--as I had foreseen--did its office, slew the tyrant, and put
the finishing touch to my work. And now I come to you, bringing democracy
with me, and call upon all men to take heart, and hear the glad tidings
of liberty. Enjoy the work of my hands! You see the citadel cleared of
the oppressors; you are under no man's orders; the law holds its course;
honours are awarded, judgements given, pleadings heard. And all springs
from one bold stroke, from the slaying of that son whom his father might
not survive. I claim from you the recompense that is my due; and that in
no paltry, grasping spirit; it was not for a wage's sake that I sought to
serve my country; but I would have my deed confirmed by your award; I
would not be disparaged by slanderous tongues, as one who attempted and
failed, and was deemed unworthy of honour.
My adversary tells me that I am unreasonable in asking for reward and
distinction. I did not slay the tyrant; I have not fulfilled the
requirements of the statute; there is a flaw in my claim.--And what more
does he want of me? Say: did I flinch? did I not ascend into the citadel?
did I not slay? are we not free men? have we a master? do we hear a
tyrant's threats? did any of the evil-doers escape me?--No; all is peace;
the laws are in force; freedom is assured; democracy is established; our
wives, our daughters are unmolested, our sons are safe; the city keeps
festival in the general joy. And who is the cause of it all? who has
wrought the change? Has any man a prior claim? Then I withdraw; be his
the honour and the reward. But if not--if mine was the deed, mine the
risk, mine the courage to ascend and smite and punish, dealing vengeance
on the father through the son--then why depreciate my services? why seek
to deprive me of a people's gratitude?
'But you did not kill the _tyrant_; the law assigns the reward to
him who kills the tyrant.' And pray what is the difference between
killing him and causing his death? I see none. The law-giver had but one
end in view,--freedom, equality, deliverance from oppression. This was
the signal service that he deemed worthy of recompense; and this service
you cannot deny that I have rendered. In slaying one whom the tyrant
could not survive, I myself wrought the tyrant's death. His was the hand:
the deed was mine. Let us not chop logic as to the manner and
circumstances of his death, but rather ask: has he ceased to exist, and
am I the cause? Your scruples might go further, and object to some future
deliverer of his country, that he struck not with the sword, but with a
stick or a stone or the like. Had I blockaded the tyrant, and brought
about his death by starvation, you would still, I suppose, have objected
that it was not the work of my own hand? Again there would have been a
flaw in my claim? The increased bitterness of such a death would have
counted for nothing with you? Confine your attention to this one
question: does any of our oppressors survive? is there any ground for
anxiety, any vestige of our past misery? If not, if all is peace, then
none but an envious detractor would attempt to deprive me of the reward
of my labours by inquiring into the means employed.
Moreover, it is laid down in our laws (unless after all these years of
servitude my memory plays me false) that blood-guiltiness is of two
kinds. A man may slay another with his own hand, or, without slaying him,
he may put death unavoidably in his way; in the latter case the penalty
is the same as in the former; and rightly, it being the intention of the
law that the cause should rank with the act itself; the manner in which
death is brought about is not the question. You would not acquit a man
who in this sense had slain another; you would punish him as a murderer:
how then can you refuse to reward as a benefactor the man who, by parity
of reasoning, has shown himself to be the liberator of his country?
Nor again can it be objected that all I did was to strike the blow, and
that the resulting benefits were accidental, and formed no part of my
design. What had I to fear, when once the stronger of our oppressors was
slain? And why did I leave my sword in the wound, if not because I
foresaw the very thing that would happen? Are you prepared to deny that
the death so occasioned was that of a tyrant both in name and in fact,
or that his death was an event for which the state would gladly pay an
abundant reward? I think not. If then the tyrant is slain, how can you
withhold the reward from him who occasioned his death? What
scrupulousness is this--to concern yourself with the manner of his end,
while you are enjoying the freedom that results from it? Democracy is
restored: what more can you demand from him who restored it? You refer us
to the terms of the law: well, the law looks only at the end; of the
means it says nothing; it has no concern with them. Has not the reward of
tyrannicide been paid before now to him who merely expelled a tyrant? And
rightly so: for he too has made free men of slaves. But I have done more:
banishment may be followed by restitution: but here the family of tyrants
is utterly annihilated and destroyed; the evil thing is exterminated,
root and branch.
I implore you, gentlemen, to review my conduct from beginning to end, and
see whether there has been any such omission on my part as to make my act
appear less than tyrannicide in the eye of the law. The high patriotic
resolve which prompts a man to face danger for the common good, and to
purchase the salvation of his country at the price of his own life; this
is the first requirement. Have I been wanting here? Have I lacked
courage? Have I shrunk back at the prospect of the dangers through which
I must pass? My enemy cannot say it of me. Now at this stage let us
pause. Consider only the intention, the design, apart from its success;
and suppose that I come before you to claim the reward of patriotism
merely on the ground of my resolve. I have failed, and another, following
in my footsteps, has slain the tyrant. Say, is it unreasonable in such a
case to allow my claim? 'Gentlemen,' I might say, 'the will, the
intention, was mine; I made the attempt, I did what I could; my resolve
entitles me of itself to your reward.' What would my enemy say to that?
But in fact my case stands far otherwise. I mounted into the stronghold,
I faced danger, I had innumerable difficulties to contend with, before I
slew the son. Think not that it was a light or easy matter, to make my
way past the watch, and single-handed to overcome one body of guards
after another and put them to flight: herein is perhaps the greatest
difficulty with which the tyrannicide has to contend. It is no such great
matter to bring the tyrant to bay, and dispatch him. Once overcome the
guards that surround him, and success is ensured; little remains to be
done. I could not make my way to the tyrants till I had mastered every
one of their satellites and bodyguards: each of those preliminary
victories had to be won. Once more I pause, and consider my situation. I
have got the better of the guards; I am master of the garrison; I present
you the tyrant stripped, unarmed, defenceless. May I claim some credit
for this, or do you still require his blood? Well, if blood you must
have, that too is not wanting; my hands are not unstained; the glorious
deed is accomplished; the youthful tyrant, the terror of all men, his
father's sole security and protection, the equivalent of many bodyguards,
is slain in the prime of his strength. Have I not earned my reward? Am I
to have no credit for all that is done? What if I had killed one of his
guards, some underling, some favourite domestic? Would it not have been
thought a great thing, to go up and dispatch the tyrant's friend within
his own walls, in the midst of his armed attendants? But who _was_
my victim? The tyrant's son, himself a more grievous tyrant than his
father, more cruel in his punishments, more violent in his excesses; a
pitiless master; one, above all, whose succession to the supreme power
promised a long continuance of our miseries. Shall I concede that this is
the sum of my achievements? Shall we put it, that the tyrant has escaped,
and lives? Still I claim my recompense. What say you, gentlemen? do you
withhold it? The son, perhaps, caused you no uneasiness; he was no
despot, no grievous oppressor?
And now for the final stroke. All that my adversary demands of me, I have
performed; and that in the most effectual manner. I slew the tyrant when
I slew his son; slew him not with a single blow--he could have asked no
easier expiation of his guilt than that--but with prolonged torment. I
showed him his beloved lying in the dust, in pitiable case, weltering in
blood. And what if he were a villain? he was still his son, still the old
man's likeness in the pride of youth. These are the wounds that fathers
feel; this the tyrannicide's sword of justice; this the death, the
vengeance, that befits cruelty and oppression. The tyrant who dies in a
moment, and knows not his loss, and sees not such sights as these, dies
unpunished. I knew--we all knew--his affection for his son; knew that not
for one day would he survive his loss. Other fathers may be devoted to
their sons: his devotion was something more than theirs. How should it be
otherwise? In him, and in him alone, the father saw the zealous guardian
of his lawless rule, the champion of his old age, the sole prop of
tyranny. If grief did not kill him on the spot, despair, I knew, must do
so; there could be no further joy in life for him when his protector was
slain. Nature, grief, despair, foreboding, terror,--these were my allies;
with these I hemmed him in, and drove him to his last desperate resolve.
Know that your oppressor died childless, heartbroken, weeping, groaning
in spirit; the time of his mourning was short, but it was a father
mourning for his son; he died by his own hand, bitterest, most awful of
deaths; that death comes lightly, by comparison, which is dealt by
another.
Where is my sword?
Does any one else know anything of this sword? Does any one claim it? Who
took it up into the citadel? The tyrant used this sword. Who had it
before him? Who put it in his way?--Sword, fellow labourer, partner of my
enterprise,--we have faced danger and shed blood to no purpose. We are
slighted. Men say that we have not earned our reward.
Suppose that I had advanced a claim solely on my sword's behalf: suppose
that I had said to you: 'Gentlemen, the tyrant had resolved to slay
himself, but was without a weapon at the moment, when this sword of mine
supplied his need, and thereby played its part in our deliverance.'
Should you not have considered that the owner of a weapon so public-
spirited was entitled to honour and reward? Should you not have
recompensed him, and inscribed his name among those of your benefactors;
consecrated his sword, and worshipped it as a God?
Now consider how the tyrant may be supposed to have acted and spoken as
his end approached.--His son lies mortally wounded at my hand; the wounds
are many, and are exposed to view, that so the father's heart may be torn
asunder at the very first sight of him. He cries out piteously to his
father, not for help--he knows the old man's feebleness--, but for
sympathy in his sufferings. I meanwhile am making my way home: I have
written in the last line of my tragedy, and now I leave the stage clear
for the actor; there is the body, the sword, all that is necessary to
complete the scene. The father enters. He beholds his son, his only son,
gasping, blood-stained, weltering in gore; he sees the wounds--mortal
wound upon wound--and exclaims: 'Son, we are slain, we are destroyed, we
are stricken in the midst of our power. Where is the assassin? For what
fate does he reserve me, who am dead already in thy death, O my son?
Because I am old he fears me not, he withholds his vengeance, and would
prolong my torment.' Then he looks for a sword; he has always gone
unarmed himself, trusting all to his son. The sword is not wanting; it
has been waiting for him all this time; I left it ready for the deed that
was to follow. He draws it from the wound and speaks: 'Sword, that but a
moment past hast slain me, complete thy work: comfort the stricken
father, aid his aged hand; dispatch, slay, make an end of the tyrant and
his grief. Would that I had met thee first, that my blood had been shed
before his! I could but have died a tyrant's death, and should have left
an avenger behind me. And now I die childless: I have not so much as a
murderer at my need.' Even as he speaks, with trembling hand he plunges
the sword into his breast: he is in haste to die; but that feeble hand
lacks strength to do its dread office.
Is he punished? Are these wounds? Is this death? A tyrant's death? Is
there reward for this?
The closing scene you have all witnessed: the son--no mean antagonist--
prostrate in death; the father fallen upon him; blood mingling with
blood, the drink-offering of Victory and Freedom; and in the midst my
sword, that wrought all; judge by its presence there, whether the weapon
was unworthy of its master, whether it did him faithful service. Had all
been done by my hand, it had been little; the strangeness of the deed is
its glory. The tyranny was overthrown by me, and no other; but many
actors had their part to play in the drama. The first part was mine; the
second was the son's; the third the tyrant's; and my sword was never
absent from the stage.
THE DISINHERITED
_A disinherited son adopts the medical profession. His father going
mad, and being given up by the other physicians, he treats him
successfully, and is then reinstated in his rights. Subsequently his
step-mother also goes mad; he is bidden to cure her, and, declaring his
inability to do so, is once more disinherited._
There is neither novelty nor strangeness, gentlemen of the jury, in my
father's present proceedings. It is not the first time his passions have
taken this direction; it has become an instinctive habit with him to pay
a visit to this familiar court. Still, my unfortunate position has this
much of novelty about it: the charge I have to meet is not personal, but
professional; I am to be punished for the inability of Medicine to do my
father's bidding. A curious demand, surely, that healing should be done
to order, and depend not on the limits of one's art, but on the wishes of
one's father. For my part, I should be only too glad to find drugs in the
pharmacopoeia which could relieve not only disordered wits, but
disordered tempers; then I might be serviceable to my father. As it is,
he is completely cured of madness, but is worse-tempered than ever. The
bitterest part of it is, he is sane enough in all other relations, and
mad only where his healer is concerned. You see what my medical fee
amounts to; I am again disinherited, cut off from my family once more, as
though the sole purpose of my brief reinstatement had been the
accentuation of my disgrace by repetition.
When a thing is within the limits of possibility, I require no bidding; I
came before I was summoned, to see what I could do in this case. But when
there is absolutely no hope, I will not meddle. With this particular
patient, such caution is especially incumbent upon me; how my father
would treat me, if I tried and failed, I can judge by his disinheriting
me when I refused to try. Gentlemen, I am sorry for my stepmother's
illness--for she was an excellent woman; I am sorry for my father's
distress thereat; I am most sorry of all that I should seem rebellious,
and be unable to give the required service; but the disease is incurable,
and my art is not omnipotent. I do not see the justice of disinheriting
one who, when he cannot do a thing, refuses to undertake it.
The present case throws a clear light upon the reasons for my first
disinheriting. The allegations of those days I consider to have been
disposed of by my subsequent life; and the present charges I shall do my
best to clear away with a short account of my proceedings. Wilful and
disobedient son that I am, a disgrace to my father, unworthy of my
family, I thought proper to say very little indeed in answer to his long
and vehement denunciations. Banished from my home, I reflected that I
should find my most convincing plea, my best acquittal, in the life I
then led, in practically illustrating the difference between my father's
picture and the reality, in devotion to the worthiest pursuits and
association with the most reputable company. But I had also a
presentiment of what actually happened; it occurred to me even then that
a perfectly sane father does not rage causelessly at his son, nor trump
up false accusations against him. Persons were not wanting who detected
incipient madness; it was the warning and precursor of a stroke which
would fall before long--this unreasoning dislike, this harsh conduct,
this fluent abuse, this malignant prosecution, all this violence,
passion, and general ill temper. Yes, gentlemen, I saw that the time
might come when Medicine would serve me well.
I went abroad, attended lectures by the most famous foreign physicians,
and by hard work and perseverance mastered my craft. Upon my return, I
found that my father's madness had developed, and that he had been given
up by the local doctors, who are not distinguished for insight, and are
much to seek in accurate diagnosis. I did no more than a son's duty when
I forgot and forgave the disinheritance, and visited him without waiting
to be called in; I had in fact nothing to complain of that was properly
his act; his errors were not his, but, as I have implied, those of his
illness. I came unsummoned, then. But I did not treat him at once; that
is not our custom, nor what our art enjoins upon us. What we are taught
to do is first of all to ascertain whether the disease is curable or
incurable--has it passed beyond our control? After that, if it is
susceptible of treatment, we treat it, and do our very best to relieve
the sufferer. But if we realize that the complaint has got the entire
mastery, we have nothing to do with it at all. That is the tradition that
has come down to us from the fathers of our art, who direct us not to
attempt hopeless cases. Well, I found that there was yet hope for my
father; the complaint had not gone too far; I watched him for a long
time; formed my conclusions with scrupulous care; then, I commenced
operations and exhibited my drugs without hesitation--though many of his
friends were suspicious of my prescription, impugned the treatment, and
took notes to be used against me.
My step-mother was present, distressed and doubtful--the result not of
any dislike to me, but of pure anxiety, based on her full knowledge of
his sad condition; no one but her, who had lived with and nursed him,
knew the worst. However, I never faltered; the symptoms would not lie to
me, nor my art fail me; when the right moment came, I applied the
treatment, in spite of the timidity of some of my friends, who were
afraid of the scandal that might result from a failure; it would be said
that the medicine was my vengeful retort to the disinheritance. To make a
long story short, it was at once apparent that he had taken no harm; he
was in his senses again, and aware of all that went on. The company were
amazed; my step-mother thanked me, and every one could see that she was
delighted both at my triumph and at her husband's recovery. He himself--
to give credit where it is due--did not take time to consider, nor to ask
advice, but, as soon as he heard the story, undid what he had done, made
me his son again, hailed me as his preserver and benefactor, confessed
that I had now given my proofs, and withdrew his previous charges. All
this was delightful to the better, who were many, among his friends, but
distasteful to the persons who enjoy a quarrel more than a
reconciliation. I observed at the time that all were not equally pleased;
there were changes of colour, uneasy glances, signs of mortification, in
one quarter at least, which told of envy and hatred. With us, who had
recovered each other, all was naturally affection and rejoicing.
Quite a short time after, my step-mother's disorder commenced--a very
terrible and unaccountable one, gentlemen of the jury. I observed it from
its very beginning; it was no slight superficial case, this; it was a
long-established but hitherto latent mental disease, which now burst out
and forced its way into notice. There are many signs by which we know
that madness is incurable--among them a strange one which I noticed in
this case. Ordinary society has a soothing, alleviating effect; the
patient forgets to be mad; but if he sees a doctor, or even hears one
mentioned, he at once displays acute irritation--an infallible sign that
he is far gone, incurable in fact. I was distressed to notice this
symptom; my step-mother was a worthy person who deserved a better fate,
and I was all compassion for her.
But my father in his simplicity, knowing neither when nor how the trouble
began, and quite unable to gauge its gravity, bade me cure her by the
drugs that had cured him. His idea was that madness was to be nothing
else but mad; the disease was the same, its effects the same, and it must
admit of the same treatment. When I told him, as was perfectly true, that
his wife was incurable, and confessed that the case was beyond me, he
thought it an outrage, said I was refusing because I chose to, and
treating the poor woman shamefully--in short, visited upon me the
limitations of my art. Such ebullitions are common enough in distress; we
all lose our tempers then with the people who tell us the truth. I must
nevertheless defend myself and my profession, as well as I can, against
his strictures.
I will begin with some remarks upon the law under which I am to be
disinherited; my father will please to observe that it is not quite so
much now as before a matter for his absolute discretion. You will find,
sir, that the author of the law has not conferred the right of disherison
upon any father against any son upon any pretext. It is true he has armed
fathers with this weapon; but he has also protected sons against its
illegitimate use. That is the meaning of his insisting that the procedure
shall not be irresponsible and uncontrolled, but come under the legal
cognizance of inspectors whose decision will be uninfluenced by passion
or misrepresentation. He knew how often irritation is unreasonable, and
what can be effected by a lying tale, a trusted slave, or a spiteful
woman. He would not have the deed done without form of law; sons were not
to be condemned unheard and out of hand; they are to have the ear of the
court for so long by the clock, and there is to be adequate inquiry into
the facts.
My father's competence, then, being confined to preferring his
complaints, and the decision whether they are reasonable or not resting
with you, I shall be within my rights in requesting you to defer
consideration of the grievance on which he bases the present suit, until
you have determined whether a second disinheritance is admissible in the
abstract. He has cast me off, has exercised his legal rights, enforced
his parental powers to the full, and then restored me to my position as
his son. Now it is iniquitous, I maintain, that fathers should have these
unlimited penal powers, that disgrace should be multiplied, apprehension
made perpetual, the law now chastize, now relent, now resume its
severity, and justice be the shuttlecock of our fathers' caprices. It is
quite proper for the law to humour, encourage, give effect to, _one_
punitive impulse on the part of him who has begotten us; but if, after
shooting his bolt, insisting on his right, indulging his wrath, he
discovers our merits and takes us back, then he should be held to his
decision, and not allowed to oscillate, waver, do and undo any more.
Originally, he had no means of knowing whether his offspring would turn
out well or ill; that is why parents who have decided to bring up
children before they knew their nature are permitted to reject such as
are found unworthy of their family.
But when a man has taken his son back, not upon compulsion, but of his
own motion and after inquiry, how can further chopping and changing be
justified? What further occasion for the law? Its author might fairly say
to you, sir: _If your son was vicious and deserved to be disinherited,
what were you about to recall him? Why have him home again? Why suspend
the law's operation? You were a free agent; you need not have done it.
The laws are not your play-ground; you are not to put the courts in
motion every time your mood varies; the laws are not to be suspended to-
day and enforced to-morrow, with juries to look on at the proceedings, or
rather to be the ministers of your whims, executioners or peace-makers
according to your taste and fancy. The boy cost you one begetting, and
one rearing; in return for which you may disinherit him, once, always
provided you have reason to show for it. Disinheriting as a regular
habit, a promiscuous pastime, is not included in the_ patria potestas.
Gentlemen of the jury, I entreat you in Heaven's name not to permit him,
after voluntarily reinstating me, reversing the previous decision, and
renouncing his anger, to revive the old sentence and have recourse to the
same paternal rights; the period of their validity is past and gone; his
own act suffices to annul and exhaust their power. You know the general
rule of the courts, that a party dissatisfied with the verdict of a
ballot--provided jury is allowed an appeal to another court; but that is
not so when the parties have agreed upon arbitrators, and, after such
selection, put the matter in their hands. They had the choice, there, of
not recognizing the court _ab initio_; if they nevertheless did so,
they may fairly be expected to abide by its award. Similarly you, sir,
had the choice of never taking back your son, if you thought him
unworthy; having decided that he was worthy, and taken him back, you
cannot be permitted to disinherit him anew; the evidence of his not
deserving it is your own admission of his worth. It is only right that
the reinstatement and reconciliation should be definitive, after such
abundant investigation; there have been two trials, observe: the first,
that in which you rejected me; the second, that in your own conscience,
which reversed the decision of the other; the fact of reversal only adds
force to the later result. Abide, then, by your second thoughts, and
uphold your own verdict. You are to be my father; such was your
determination, approved and ratified.
Suppose I were not your begotten, but only your adopted son, I hold that
you could not then have disinherited me; for what it is originally open
to us not to do, we have no right, having done, to undo. But where there
is both the natural tie, and that of deliberate choice, how can a second
rejection, a repeated deprivation of the one relationship, be justified?
Or again, suppose I had been a slave, and you had seen reason to put me
in irons, and afterwards, convinced of my innocence, made me a free man;
could you, upon an angry impulse, have enslaved me again? Assuredly not;
the law makes these acts binding and irrevocable. Upon this contention,
that the voluntary annulment of a disinheritance precludes a repetition
of the act, I could enlarge further, but will not labour the point.
You have next to consider the character of the man now to be
disinherited. I lay no stress upon the fact that I was then nothing, and
am now a physician; my art will not help me here. As little do I insist
that I was then young, and am now middle-aged, with my years as a
guarantee against misconduct; perhaps there is not much in that either.
But, gentlemen, at the time of my previous expulsion, if I had never done
my father any harm (as I should maintain), neither had I done him any
good; whereas now I have recently been his preserver and benefactor;
could there be worse ingratitude than so, and so soon, to requite me for
saving him from that terrible fate? My care of him goes for nothing; it
is lightly forgotten, and I am driven forth desolate--I, whose wrongs
might have excused my rejoicing at his troubles, but who, so far from
bearing malice, saved him and restored him to his senses.
For, gentlemen, it is no ordinary slight kindness that he is choosing
this way of repaying. You all know (though he may not realize) what he
was capable of doing, what he had to endure, what his state was, in fact,
during those bad days. The doctors had given him up, his relations had
cleared away and dared not come near him; but I undertook his case and
restored him to the power of--accusing me and going to law. Let me help
your imagination, sir. You were very nearly in the state in which your
wife now is, when I gave you back your understanding. It is surely not
right that my reward for that should be this--that your understanding
should be used against me alone. That it is no trifling kindness I have
done you is apparent from the very nature of your accusation. The ground
of your hatred is that she whom I do not cure is in extremities, is
terribly afflicted; then, seeing that I relieved you of just such an
affliction, there is surely better reason for you to love and be grateful
to me for your own release from such horrors. But you are unconscionable
enough to make the first employment of your restored faculties an
indictment of me; you smite your healer, the ancient hate revives, and we
have you reciting the same old law again. My art's handsome fee, the
worthy payment for my drugs, is--your present manifestation of vigour!
But you, gentlemen of the jury, will you allow him to punish his
benefactor, drive away his preserver, pay for his wits with hatred, and
for his recovery with chastisement? I hope better things of your justice.
However flagrantly I had now been misconducting myself, I had a large
balance of gratitude to draw upon. With that consideration in his memory,
he need not have been extreme to mark what is now done amiss; it might
have inspired him with ready indulgence, the more if the antecedent
service was great enough to throw anything that might follow into the
shade. That fairly states my relation to him; I preserved him; he owes
his life absolutely to me; his existence, his sanity, his understanding,
are my gifts, given, moreover, when all others despaired and confessed
that the case was beyond their skill.
The service that I did was the more meritorious, it seems to me, in that
I was not at the time my father's son, nor under any obligation to
undertake the case; I was independent of him, a mere stranger; the
natural bond had been snapped. Yet I was not indifferent; I came as a
volunteer, uninvited, at my own instance. I brought help, I persevered, I
effected the cure, I restored him, thereby securing myself at once a
father and an acquittal; I conquered anger with kindness, disarmed law
with affection, purchased readmission to my family with important
service, proved my filial loyalty at that critical moment, was adopted
(or adopted myself, rather) on the recommendation of my art, while my
conduct in trying circumstances proved me a son by blood also. For I had
anxiety and fatigue enough in being always on the spot, ministering to my
patient, watching for my opportunities, now humouring the disease when it
gathered strength, now availing myself of a remission to combat it. Of
all a physician's tasks the most hazardous is the care of patients like
this, with the personal attendance it involves; for in their moments of
exasperation they are apt to direct their fury upon any one they can come
at. Yet I never shrank or hesitated; I was always there; I had a life-
and-death struggle with the malady, and the final victory was with me and
my drugs.
Now I can fancy a person who hears all this objecting hastily, 'What a
fuss about giving a man a dose of medicine!' But the fact is, there are
many preliminaries to be gone through; the ground has to be prepared; the
body must first be made susceptible to treatment; the patient's whole
condition has to be studied; he must be purged, reduced, dieted, properly
exercised, enabled to sleep, coaxed into tranquillity. Now other invalids
will submit to all this; but mania robs its victims of self-control; they
are restive and jib; their physicians are in danger, and treatment at a
disadvantage. Constantly, when we are on the very point of success and
full of hope, some slight hitch occurs, and a relapse takes place which
undoes all in a moment, neutralizing our care and tripping up our art.
Now, after my going through all this, after my wrestle with this
formidable disease and my triumph over so elusive an ailment, is it still
your intention to support him in disinheriting me? Shall he interpret the
laws as he will against his benefactor? Will you look on while he makes
war upon nature? I obey nature, gentlemen of the jury, in saving my
father from death, and myself from the loss of him, unjust as he had
been. He on the contrary defers to law (he calls it law) in ruining and
cutting off from his kin the son who has obliged him. He is a cruel
father, I a loving son. I own the authority of nature: he spurns and
flings it from him. How misplaced is this paternal hate! How worse
misplaced this filial love! For I must reproach myself--my father will
have it so. And the reproach? That where I should hate (for I am hated),
I love, and where I should love little, I love much. Yet surely nature
requires of parents that they love their children more than of children
that they love their parents. But he deliberately disregards both the
law, which secures children their family rights during good behaviour,
and nature, which inspires parents with fervent love for their offspring.
Having greater incentives to affection, you might suppose that he would
confer the fruits of it upon me in larger measure, or at the least
reciprocate and emulate my love. Alas, far from it! he returns hate for
love, persecution for devotion, wrong for service, disinheritance for
respect; the laws which guard, he converts into means of assailing, the
rights of children. Ah, my father, how do you force law into your service
in this battle against nature!
The facts, believe me, are not as you would have them. You are a bad
exponent, sir, of good laws. In this matter of affection there is no war
between law and nature; they hunt in couples, they work together for the
remedying of wrongs. When you evil entreat your benefactor, you are
wronging nature; now I ask, do you wrong the laws as well as nature? You
do; it is their intention to be fair and just and give sons their rights;
but you will not allow it; you hound them on again and again upon one
child as though he were many; you keep them ever busy punishing, when
their own desire is peace and goodwill between father and son. I need
hardly add that, as against the innocent, they may be said to have no
existence. But let me tell you, ingratitude also is an offence known to
the law; an action will lie against a person who fails to recompense his
benefactor. If he adds to such failure an attempt to punish, he has
surely reached the uttermost limits of wrong in this sort. And now I
think I have sufficiently established two points: first, my father has
not the right, after once exerting his parental privilege and availing
himself of the law, to disinherit me again; and secondly, it is on
general grounds inadmissible to cast off and expel from his family one
who has rendered service so invaluable.
Let us next proceed to the actual reasons given for the disinheritance;
let us inquire into the nature of the charge. We must first go back for a
moment to the intention of the legislator. We will grant you for the sake
of argument, sir, that it is open to you to disinherit as often as you
please; we will further concede you this right against your benefactor;
but I presume that disinheritance is not to be the beginning and the
ending in itself; you will not resort to it, that is, without sufficient
cause. The legislator's meaning is not that the father can disinherit,
whatever his grievance may be, that nothing is required beyond the wish
and a complaint; in that case, what is the court's function? No,
gentlemen, it is your business to inquire whether the parental anger
rests upon good and sufficient grounds. That is the question which I am
now to put before you; and I will take up the story from the moment when
sanity was restored.
The first-fruits of this was the withdrawal of the disinheritance; I was
preserver, benefactor, everything. So far my conduct is not open to
exception, I take it. Well, and later on what fault has my father to
find? What attention or filial duty did I omit? Did I stay out o' nights,
sir? Do you charge me with untimely drinkings and revellings? Was I
extravagant? Did I get into some disreputable brawl? Did any such
complaint reach you? None whatever. Yet these are just the offences for
which the law contemplates disherison. Ah, but my step-mother fell ill.
Indeed, and do you make that a charge against me? Do you prefer a suit
for ill health? I understand you to say no.
What _is_ the grievance, then?-_That you refuse to treat her at my
bidding, and for such disobedience to your father deserve to be
disinherited_.--Gentlemen, I will explain presently how the nature of
this demand results in a seeming disobedience, but a real inability.
Meanwhile, I simply remark that neither the authority which the law
confers on him, nor the obedience to which I am bound, is indiscriminate.
Among orders, some have no sanction, while the disregard of others
justifies anger and punishment. My father may be ill, and I neglect him;
he may charge me with the management of his house, and I take no notice;
he may tell me to look after his country estate, and I evade the task. In
all these and similar cases, the parental censure will be well deserved.
But other things again are for the sons to decide, as questions of
professional skill or policy--especially if the father's interests are
not touched. If a painter's father says to him, 'Paint this, my boy, and
do not paint that'; or a musician's, 'Strike this note, and not the
other'; or a bronze-founder's, 'Cast so-and-so'; would it be tolerable
that the son should be disinherited for not taking such advice? Of course
not.
But the medical profession should be left still more to their own
discretion than other artists, in proportion to the greater nobility of
their aims and usefulness of their work; this art should have a special
right of choosing its objects; this sacred occupation, taught straight
from Heaven, and pursued by the wisest of men, should be secured against
all compulsion, enslaved to no law, intimidated and penalized by no
court, exposed to no votes or paternal threats or uninstructed passions.
If I had told my father directly and expressly, 'I will not do it, I
refuse the case, though I could treat it, I hold my art at no man's
service but my own and yours, as far as others are concerned I am a
layman'--if I had taken that position, where is the masterful despot who
would have applied force and compelled me to practise against my will?
The appropriate inducements are request and entreaty, not laws and
browbeating and tribunals; the physician is to be persuaded, not
commanded; he is to choose, not be terrorized; he is not to be haled to
his patient, but to come with his consent and at his pleasure.
Governments are wont to give physicians the public recognition of
honours, precedence, immunities and privileges; and shall the art which
has State immunities not be exempt from the _patria fotestas_?
All this I was entitled to say simply as a professional man, even on the
assumption that you had had me taught, and devoted much care and expense
to my training, that this particular case had been within my competence,
and I had yet declined it. But in fact you have to consider also how
utterly unreasonable it is that you should not let me use at my own
discretion my own acquisition. It was not as your son nor under your
authority that I acquired this art; and yet it was for your advantage
that I acquired it--you were the first to profit by it--, though you had
contributed nothing to my training. Will you mention the fees you paid?
How much did the stock of my surgery cost you? Not one penny. I was a
pauper, I knew not where to turn for necessaries, and I owed my
instruction to my teachers' charity. The provision my father made for my
education was sorrow, desolation, distress, estrangement from my friends
and banishment from my family. And do you then claim to have the use of
my skill, the absolute control of what was acquired independently? You
should be content with the previous service rendered to yourself, not
under obligation, but of free will; for even on that occasion nothing
could have been demanded of me on the score of gratitude.
My kindness of the past is not to be my duty of the future; a voluntary
favour is not to be turned into an obligation to take unwelcome orders;
the principle is not to be established that he who once cures a man is
bound to cure any number of others at his bidding ever after. That would
be to appoint the patients we cure our absolute masters; _we_ should
be paying _them_, and the fee would be slavish submission to their
commands. Could anything be more absurd? Because you were ill, and I was
at such pains to restore you, does that make you the owner of my art?
All this I could have said, if the tasks he imposed upon me had been
within my powers, and I had declined to accept all of them, or, on
compulsion, any of them. But I now wish you to look further into their
nature. 'You cured me of madness (says he); my wife is now mad and in the
condition I was in (that of course is his idea); she has been given up as
I was by the other doctors, but you have shown that nothing is too hard
for you; very well, then, cure her too, and make an end of her illness.'
Now, put like that, it sounds very reasonable, especially in the ears of
a layman innocent of medical knowledge. But if you will listen to what I
have to say for my art, you will find that there _are_ things too
hard for us, that all ailments are not alike, that the same treatment and
the same drugs will not always answer; and then you will understand what
a difference there is between refusing and being unable. Pray bear with
me while I generalize a little, without condemning my disquisition as
pedantic, irrelevant, or ill-timed.
To begin with, human bodies differ in nature and temperament; compounded
as they admittedly are of the same elements, they are yet compounded in
different proportions. I am not referring at present to sexual
differences; the _male_ body is not the same or alike in different
individuals; it differs in temperament and constitution; and from this it
results that in different men diseases also differ both in character and
in intensity; one man's body has recuperative power and is susceptible to
treatment; another's is utterly crazy, open to every infection, and
without vigour to resist disease. To suppose, then, that all fever, all
consumption, lung-disease, or mania, being generically the same, will
affect every subject in the same way, is what no sensible, thoughtful, or
well-informed person would do; the same disease is easily curable in one
man, and not in another. Why, sow the same wheat in various soils, and
the results will vary. Let the soil be level, deep, well watered, well
sunned, well aired, well ploughed, and the crop will be rich, fat,
plentiful. Elevated stony ground will make a difference, no sun another
difference, foothills another, and so on. Just so with disease; its soil
makes it thrive and spread, or starves it. Now all this quite escapes my
father; he makes no inquiries of this sort, but assumes that all mania in
every body is the same, and to be treated accordingly.
Besides such differences between males, it is obvious that the female
body differs widely from the male both in the diseases it is subject to
and in its capacity or non-capacity of recovery. The bracing effect of
toil, exercise, and open air gives firmness and tone to the male; the
female is soft and unstrung from its sheltered existence, and pale with
anaemia, deficient caloric and excess of moisture. It is consequently, as
compared with the male, open to infection, exposed to disease, unequal to
vigorous treatment, and, in particular, liable to mania. With their
emotional, mobile, excitable tendencies on the one hand, and their
defective bodily strength on the other, women fall an easy prey to this
affliction.
It is quite unfair, then, to expect the physician to cure both sexes
indifferently; we must recognize how far apart they are, their whole
lives, pursuits, and habits, having been distinct from infancy. Do not
talk of a mad person, then, but specify the sex; do not confound
distinctions and force all cases under the supposed identical title of
madness; keep separate what nature separates, and then examine the
respective possibilities. I began this exposition with stating that the
first thing we doctors look to is the nature and temperament of our
patient's body: which of the humours predominates in it; is it full-
blooded or the reverse; at, or past, its prime; big or little; fat or
lean? When a man has satisfied himself upon these and other such points,
his opinion, favourable or adverse, upon the prospects of recovery may be
implicitly relied upon.
It must be remembered too that madness itself has a thousand forms,
numberless causes, and even some distinct names. Delusion, infatuation,
frenzy, lunacy--these are not the same; they all express different
degrees of the affection. Again, the causes are not only different in men
and women, but, in men, they are different for the old and for the young;
for instance, in young men some redundant humour is the usual cause;
whereas with the old a shrewdly timed slander, or very likely a fancied
domestic slight, will get hold of them, first cloud their understanding,
and finally drive them distracted. As for women, all sorts of things
effect a lodgement and make easy prey of them, especially bitter dislike,
envy of a prosperous rival, pain or anger. These feelings smoulder on,
gaining strength with time, till at last they burst out in madness.
Such, sir, has been your wife's case, perhaps with the addition of some
recent trouble; for she used to have no strong dislikes, yet she is now
in the grasp of the malady--and that beyond hope of medical relief. For
if any physician undertakes and cures the case, you have my permission to
hate me for the wrong I have done you. Yet I must go so far as to say
that, even had the case not been so desperate--had there been a glimmer
of hope--even then I should not have lightly intervened, nor been very
ready to administer drugs; I should have been afraid of what might
happen, and of the sort of stories that might get about. You know the
universal belief that every step-mother, whatever her general merits,
hates her step-sons; it is supposed to be a feminine mania from which
none of them is exempt. If the disease had taken a wrong turn, and the
medicine failed of its effect, there would very likely have been
suspicions of intentional malpractice.
Your wife's condition, sir--and I describe it to you after close
observation--, is this: she will never mend, though she take ten thousand
doses of medicine. It is therefore undesirable to make the experiment,
unless your object is merely to compel me to fail and cover me with
disgrace. Pray do not enable my professional brethren to triumph over me;
their jealousy is enough. If you disinherit me again, I shall be left
desolate, but I shall pray for no evil upon your head. But suppose--
though God forbid!--suppose your malady should return; relapses are
common enough in such cases, under irritation; what is my course then to
be? Doubt not, I shall restore you once more; I shall not desert the post
which nature assigns to children; I for my part shall not forget my
descent. And then if you recover, must I look for another restitution?
You understand me? your present proceedings are calculated to awake your
disease and stir it to renewed malignancy. It is but the other day that
you emerged from your sad condition, and you are vehement and loud--worst
of all, you are full of anger, indulging your hatred and appealing once
more to the law. Alas, father, even such was the prelude to your first
madness.
PHALARIS, I
We are sent to you, Priests of Delphi, by Phalaris our master, with
instructions to present this bull to the God, and to speak the necessary
words on behalf of the offering and its donor. Such being our errand, it
remains for us to deliver his message, which is as follows:
'It is my desire above all things, men of Delphi, to appear to the Greeks
as I really am, and not in that character in which Envy and Malice,
availing themselves of the ignorance of their hearers, have represented
me: and if to the Greeks in general, then most of all to you, who are
holy men, associates of the God, sharers (I had almost said) of his
hearth and home. If I can clear myself before you, if I can convince you
that I am not the cruel tyrant I am supposed to be, then I may consider
myself cleared in the eyes of all the world. For the truth of my
statements, I appeal to the testimony of the God himself. Methinks
_he_ is not likely to be deceived by lying words. It may be an easy
matter to mislead men: but to escape the penetration of a God--and that
God Apollo--is impossible.
'I was a man of no mean family; in birth, in breeding, in education, the
equal of any man in Agrigentum. In my political conduct I was ever
public-spirited, in my private life mild and unassuming; no unseemly act,
no deed of violence, oppression, or headstrong insolence was ever laid to
my charge in those early days. But our city at that time was divided into
factions: I saw myself exposed to the plots of my political opponents,
who sought to destroy me by every means: if I would live in security, if
I would preserve the city from destruction, there was but one course open
to me--to seize upon the government, and thereby baffle my opponents, put
an end to their machinations, and bring my countrymen to their senses.
There were not a few who approved my design: patriots and men of cool
judgement, they understood my sentiments, and saw that I had no
alternative. With their help, I succeeded without difficulty in my
enterprise.
'From that moment, the disturbances ceased. My opponents, became my
subjects, I their ruler; and the city was freed from dissension. From
executions and banishments and confiscations I abstained, even in the
case of those who had plotted against my life. Such strong measures are
indeed never more necessary than at the commencement of a new rule: but I
was sanguine; I proposed to treat them as my equals, and to win their
allegiance by clemency, mildness, and humanity. My first act was to
reconcile myself with my enemies, most of whom I invited to my table and
took into my confidence.
'I found the city in a ruinous condition, owing to the neglect of the
magistrates, who had commonly been guilty of embezzlement, if not of
wholesale plunder. I repaired the evil by means of aqueducts, beautified
the city with noble buildings, and surrounded it with walls. The public
revenues were easily increased by proper attention on the part of the
fiscal authorities. I provided for the education of the young and the
maintenance of the old; and for the general public I had games and
spectacles, banquets and doles. As for rape and seduction, tyrannical
violence or intimidation, I abhorred the very name of such things.
'I now began to think of laying down my power; and how to do so with
safety was my only concern. The cares of government and public business
had begun to weigh upon me; I found my position as burdensome as it was
invidious. But it was still a question, how to render the city
independent of such assistance for the future. And whilst I--honest man!
--was busied with such thoughts, my enemies were even then combining
against me, and debating the ways and means of rebellion; conspiracies
were forming, arms and money were being collected, neighbour states were
invited to assist, embassies were on their way to Sparta and Athens. The
torments that were in store for me, had I fallen into their hands, I
afterwards learnt from their public confession under torture, from which
it appeared that they had vowed to tear me limb from limb with their own
hands. For my escape from such a fate, I have to thank the Gods, who
unmasked the conspiracy; and, in particular, the God of Delphi, who sent
dreams to warn me, and dispatched messengers with detailed information.
'And now, men of Delphi, I would ask your advice. Imagine yourselves to-
day in the perilous situation in which I then stood; and tell me what was
my proper course. I had almost fallen unawares into the hands of my
enemies, and was casting about for means of safety. Leave Delphi for a
while, and transport yourselves in spirit to Agrigentum: behold the
preparations of my enemies: listen to their threats; and say, what is
your counsel? Shall I sit quietly on the brink of destruction, exercising
clemency and long-suffering as heretofore? bare my throat to the sword?
see my nearest and dearest slaughtered before my eyes? What would this be
but sheer imbecility? Shall I not rather bear myself like a man of
spirit, give the rein to my rational indignation, avenge my injuries upon
the conspirators, and use my present power with a view to my future
security? This, I know, would have been your advice.
'Now observe my procedure. I sent for the guilty persons, heard their
defence, produced my evidence, established every point beyond a doubt;
and when they themselves admitted the truth of the accusation, I punished
them; for I took it ill, not that they had plotted against my life, but
that on their account I was compelled to abandon my original policy. From
that day to this, I have consulted my own safety by punishing conspiracy
as often as it has shown itself.
'And men call me cruel! They do not stop to ask who was the aggressor;
they condemn what they think the cruelty of my vengeance, but pass
lightly over the provocation, and the nature of the crime. It is as if a
man were to see a temple-robber hurled from the rock at Delphi, and,
without reflecting how the transgressor had stolen into your temple by
night, torn down the votive-offerings, and laid hands upon the graven
image of the God, were to exclaim against the inhumanity of persons who,
calling themselves Greeks and holy men, could yet find it in them to
inflict this awful punishment upon their fellow Greek, and that within
sight of the holy place;--for the rock, as I am told, is not far from the
city. Surely you would laugh to scorn such an accusation as this; and
your _cruel_ treatment of the impious would be universally applauded.
'But so it is: the public does not inquire into the character of a ruler,
into the justice or injustice of his conduct; the mere name of tyranny
ensures men's hatred; the tyrant might be an Aeacus, a Minos, a
Rhadamanthus,--they would be none the less eager for his destruction;
their thoughts ever run on those tyrants who have been bad rulers, and
the good, because they bear the same name, are held in the like
detestation. I have heard that many of your tyrants in Greece have been
wise men, who, labouring under that opprobrious title, have yet given
proofs of benevolence and humanity, and whose pithy maxims are even now
stored up in your temple among the treasures of the God.
'Observe, moreover, the prominence given to punishment by all
constitutional legislators; they know that when the fear of punishment is
wanting, nothing else is of avail. And this is doubly so with us who are
tyrants; whose power is based upon compulsion; who live in the midst of
enmity and treachery. The bugbear terrors of the law would never serve
our turn. Rebellion is a many-headed Hydra: we cut off one guilty head,
two others grow in its place. Yet we must harden our hearts, smite them
off as they grow, and--like lolaus--sear the wounds; thus only shall we
hold our own. The man who has once become involved in such a strife as
this must play the part that he has undertaken; to show mercy would be
fatal. Do you suppose that any man was ever so brutal, so inhuman, as to
rejoice in torture and groans and bloodshed for their own sake, when
there was no occasion for punishment? Many is the time that I have wept
while others suffered beneath the lash, and groaned in spirit over the
hard fate that subjected me to a torment more fierce and more abiding
than theirs. For to the man who is benevolent by nature, and harsh only
by compulsion, it is more painful to inflict punishment than it would be
to undergo it.
'Now I will speak my mind frankly. If I had to choose between punishing
innocent men, and facing death myself, believe me, I should have no
hesitation in accepting the latter alternative. But if I am asked,
whether I had rather die an undeserved death than give their deserts to
those who plotted against my life, I answer no; and once more, Delphians,
I appeal to you: which is better--to die when I deserve not death, or to
spare my enemies who deserve not mercy? [Footnote: Apparently the speaker
intended to repeat the last pair of alternatives in different words:
instead of which, he gives us one of those alternatives twice over.
Lucian's tautologic genius fails him for once.] No man surely can be such
a fool that he would not rather live than preserve his enemies by his
death. Yet in spite of this how many have I spared who were palpably
convicted of conspiring against me; such were Acanthus, Timocrates, and
his brother Leogoras, all of whom I saved out of regard for our former
intercourse.
'If you would learn more of me, apply to any of the strangers who have
visited Agrigentum; and see what account they give of the treatment they
received, and of my hospitality to all who land on my coasts. My
messengers are waiting for them in every port, to inquire after their
names and cities, that they may not go away without receiving due honour
at my hands. Some--the wisest of the Greeks--have come expressly to visit
me, so far are they from avoiding intercourse with me. It was but lately
that I received a visit from the sage Pythagoras. The account that he had
heard of me was belied by his experience; and on taking his departure he
expressed admiration of my justice, and deplored the circumstances which
made severity a duty. Now is it likely that one who is so benevolent to
strangers should deal unjustly with his fellow citizens? is it not to be
supposed that the provocation has been unusually great?
'So much then in defence of my own conduct; I have spoken the words of
truth and justice, and would persuade myself that I have merited your
approbation rather than your resentment. And now I must explain to you
the origin of my present offering, and the manner in which it came into
my hands. For it was by no instructions of mine that the statuary made
this bull: far be it from me to aspire to the possession of such works of
art! A countryman of my own, one Perilaus, an admirable artist, but a man
of evil disposition, had so far mistaken my character as to think that he
could win my regard by the invention of a new form of torture; the love
of torture, he thought, was my ruling passion. He it was who made the
bull and brought it to me. I no sooner set eyes on this beautiful and
exquisite piece of workmanship, which lacked only movement and sound to
complete the illusion, than I exclaimed: "Here is an offering fit for the
God of Delphi: to him I must send it." "And what will you say," rejoined
Perilaus, who stood by, "when you see the ingenious mechanism within it,
and learn the purpose it is designed to serve?" He opened the back of the
animal, and continued: "When you are minded to punish any one, shut him
up in this receptacle, apply these pipes to the nostrils of the bull, and
order a fire to be kindled beneath. The occupant will shriek and roar in
unremitting agony; and his cries will come to you through the pipes as
the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings. Your victim
will be punished, and you will enjoy the music."
'His words revolted me. I loathed the thought of such ingenious cruelty,
and resolved to punish the artificer in kind. "If this is anything more
than an empty boast, Perilaus," I said to him, "if your art can really
produce this effect, get inside yourself, and pretend to roar; and we
will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe." He
consented; and when he was inside I closed the aperture, and ordered a
fire to be kindled. "Receive," I cried, "the due reward of your wondrous
art: let the music-master be the first to play." Thus did his ingenuity
meet with its deserts. But lest the offering should be polluted by his
death, I caused him to be removed while he was yet alive, and his body to
be flung dishonoured from the cliffs. The bull, after due purification, I
sent as an offering to your God, with an inscription upon it, setting
forth all the circumstances; the names of the donor and of the artist,
the evil design of the latter, and the righteous sentence which condemned
him to illustrate by his own agonized shrieks the efficacy of his musical
device.
'And now, men of Delphi, you will be doing me no more than justice, if
you join my ambassadors in making sacrifice on my behalf, and set up the
bull in a conspicuous part of the temple; that all men may know what is
my attitude towards evil-doers, and in what manner I chastise their
inordinate craving after wickedness. Herein is a sufficient indication of
my character: Perilaus punished, the bull consecrated, not reserved for
the bellowings of other victims. The first and last melody that issued
from those pipes was wrung from their artificer; that one experiment
made, the harsh, inhuman notes are silenced for ever. So much for the
present offering, which will be followed by many others, so soon as the
God vouchsafes me a respite from my work of chastisement.'
Such was the message of Phalaris; and his statement is in strict
accordance with the facts. You may safely accept our testimony, as we are
acquainted with the circumstances, and can have no object in deceiving
you on the present occasion. Must entreaty be added? Then on behalf of
one whose character has been misrepresented, and whose severities were
forced upon him against his will, we implore you,--we who are
Agrigentines, Greeks like yourselves and of Dorian origin--to accept his
offer of friendship, and not to thwart his benevolent intentions towards
your community and the individuals of which it is composed. Take the bull
into your keeping; consecrate it; and offer up your prayers on behalf of
Agrigentum and of Phalaris. Suffer us not to have come hither in vain:
repulse not our master with scorn: nor deprive the God of an offering
whose intrinsic beauty is only equalled by its righteous associations.
PHALARIS, II
Men of Delphi: I stand in no public relation to the city of Agrigentum,
in no private relation to its ruler; I am bound to him neither by
gratitude for past favours, nor by the prospect of future friendship: but
I have heard the just and temperate plea advanced by his emissaries, and
I rise to advocate the claims of religion, the interests of our
community, the duties of the priesthood; I charge you, thwart not the
pious intention of a mighty prince, nor deprive the God of an offering
which in the intention of the donor is already his, and which is destined
to serve as an eternal threefold record,--of the sculptor's art, of
inventive cruelty, and of righteous retribution. To me it seems that only
to have raised this question, only to have halted between acceptance and
rejection, is in itself an offence against Heaven; nay, a glaring
impiety. For what is this but a sacrilege more heinous than that of the
temple-robber, who does but plunder those sacred things to which you
would even deny consecration? I implore you,--your fellow priest, your
partner in good report (if so it may be), or in evil (should that now
befall us), implores you: close not the temple-doors upon the devout
worshipper; suffer us not to be known to the world as men who examine
jealously into the offerings that are brought, and subject the donor to
the narrow scrutiny of a court, and to the hazard of a vote. For who
would not be deterred at the thought that the God accepts no offering
without the previous sanction of his priests?
Already Apollo has declared his true opinion. Had he hated Phalaris, or
scorned his gift, it had been easy for him to sink the gift and the ship
that bore it in mid-ocean; instead, we learn that he vouchsafed them a
calm passage and a safe arrival at Cirrha. Clearly the monarch's piety is
acceptable in his sight. It behoves you to confirm his decision, and to
add this bull to the glories of the temple. Strange indeed, if the sender
of so magnificent a gift is to meet with rejection at the temple-door,
and his piety to be rewarded with the judgement that his offering is
unclean.
My opponent tells a harrowing tale of butchery and violence, of plunder
and abduction; it is much that he does not call himself an eyewitness
thereof; we might suppose that he was but newly arrived from Agrigentum,
did we not know that his travels have never carried him on board ship. In
matters of this kind, it is not advisable to place much reliance even on
the assertions of the supposed victims; there is no knowing how far they
are speaking the truth;--as to bringing allegations ourselves, when we
know nothing of the facts, that is out of the question. Granting even
that something of the kind _did_ happen, it happened in Sicily: we
are at Delphi; we are not called upon to interfere. Do we propose to
abandon the temple for the law-court? Are we, whose office it is to
sacrifice, and minister to the God, and receive his offerings,--are we to
sit here debating whether certain cities on the other side of the Ionian
sea are well or ill governed? Let other men's affairs be as they may, it
is our business, as I take it, to know our own: our past history, our
present situation, our best interests. We need not wait for Homer to
inform us that we inhabit a land of crags, and are tillers of a rocky
soil; our eyes tell us that; if we depended on our soil, we must go
hungry all our days. Apollo; his temple; his oracle; his worshippers; his
sacrifices;--these are the fields of the Delphians, these their revenues,
their wealth, their maintenance. I can speak the truth here. It is as the
poets say: we sow not, we plough not, yet all things grow for our use;
for a God is our husbandman, and gives us not the good things of Greece
only; all that Phrygia, all that Lydia, all that Persia, Assyria,
Phoenicia, Italy, and the far North can yield,--all comes to Delphi. We
live in prosperity and plenty; in the esteem of mankind we are second to
none but the God himself. So it was in the beginning: so it is now: and
so may it ever be!
But who has ever heard before of our putting an offering to the vote, or
hindering men from paying sacrifice? No one; and herein, as I maintain,
is the secret of our temple's greatness, and of the abundant wealth of
its offerings. Then let us have no innovations now, no new-fangled
institutions, no inquiries into the origin and nature and nationality and
pedigree of a gift; let us take what is brought to us, and set it in the
store-chamber without more ado. In this way we shall best serve both the
God and his worshippers. I think it would be well if, before you
deliberate further on the question before you, you would consider how
great and how various are the issues involved. There is the God, his
temple, his sacrifices and offerings, the ancient customs and ordinances,
the reputation of the oracle; again, our city as a whole, our common
interests, and those of every individual Delphian among us; lastly--and I
know not what consideration could seem of more vital importance to a
well-judging mind--, our own credit or discredit with the world at large.
I say, then, we have to deal not with Phalaris, not with a single tyrant,
not with this bull, not with so much weight of bronze,--but with every
king and prince who frequents our temple at this day; with gold and
silver and all the precious offerings that should pour in upon the God;
that God whose interests claim our first attention. Say, why should we
change the old-established usage in regard to offerings? What fault have
we to find with the ancient custom, that we should propose innovations?
Never yet, from the day when Delphi was first inhabited, and Apollo
prophesied, and the tripod gave utterance, and the priestess was
inspired, never yet have the bringers of gifts been subjected to
scrutiny. And shall they now? Consider how the ancient custom, which
granted free access to all men, has filled the temple with treasures; how
all men have brought their offerings, and how some have impoverished
themselves to enrich the God. My mind misgives me that, when you have
assumed the censorship of offerings, you will lack employment: men may
refuse to submit themselves to your court; they may think it is enough to
spend their money, without having to undergo the risk of a rejection for
their pains. Would life be worth living, to the man who should be judged
unworthy to offer sacrifice?
ALEXANDER THE ORACLE-MONGER
You, my dear Celsus, possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite
a trifling task: _Write me down in a book and send me the life and
adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of
Abonutichus_. In fact, however, it would take as long to do this in
full detail as to reduce to writing the achievements of Alexander of
Macedon; the one is among villains what the other is among heroes.
Nevertheless, if you will promise to read with indulgence, and fill up
the gaps in my tale from your imagination, I will essay the task. I may
not cleanse that Augean stable completely, but I will do my best, and
fetch you out a few loads as samples of the unspeakable filth that three
thousand oxen could produce in many years.
I confess to being a little ashamed both on your account and my own.
There are you asking that the memory of an arch-scoundrel should be
perpetuated in writing; here am I going seriously into an investigation
of this sort--the doings of a person whose deserts entitled him not to be
read about by the cultivated, but to be torn to pieces in the
amphitheatre by apes or foxes, with a vast audience looking on. Well,
well, if any one does cast reflections of that sort upon us, we shall at
least have a precedent to plead. Arrian himself, disciple of Epictetus,
distinguished Roman, and product of lifelong culture as he was, had just
our experience, and shall make our defence. He condescended, that is, to
put on record the life of the robber Tilliborus. The robber we propose to
immortalize was of a far more pestilent kind, following his profession
not in the forests and mountains, but in cities; _he_ was not content to
overrun a Mysia or an Ida; _his_ booty came not from a few scantily
populated districts of Asia; one may say that the scene of his
depredations was the whole Roman Empire.
I will begin with a picture of the man himself, as lifelike (though I am
not great at description) as I can make it with nothing better than
words. In person--not to forget that part of him--he was a fine handsome
man with a real touch of divinity about him, white-skinned, moderately
bearded; he wore besides his own hair artificial additions which matched
it so cunningly that they were not generally detected. His eyes were
piercing, and suggested inspiration, his voice at once sweet and
sonorous. In fact there was no fault to be found with him in these
respects.
So much for externals. As for his mind and spirit--well, if all the kind
Gods who avert disaster will grant a prayer, it shall be that they bring
me not within reach of such a one as he; sooner will I face my bitterest
enemies, my country's foes. In understanding, resource, acuteness, he was
far above other men; curiosity, receptiveness, memory, scientific
ability--all these were his in overflowing measure. But he used them for
the worst purposes. Endowed with all these instruments of good, he very
soon reached a proud pre-eminence among all who have been famous for
evil; the Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus--all
thrown into the shade. In a letter to his father-in-law Rutilianus, which
puts his own pretensions in a truly modest light, he compares himself to
Pythagoras. Well, I should not like to offend the wise, the divine
Pythagoras; but if he had been Alexander's contemporary, I am quite sure
he would have been a mere child to him. Now by all that is admirable, do
not take that for an insult to Pythagoras, nor suppose I would draw a
parallel between their achievements. What I mean is: if any one would
make a collection of all the vilest and most damaging slanders ever
vented against Pythagoras--things whose truth I would not accept for a
moment--, the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of
Alexander's cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and
conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery,
perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in
execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume
the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no
one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that
this was the best and kindest of men, ay, and the simplest and most
unsophisticated. Add to all this a certain greatness in his objects; he
never made a small plan; his ideas were always large.
While in the bloom of his youthful beauty, which we may assume to have
been great both from its later remains and from the report of those who
saw it, he traded quite shamelessly upon it. Among his other patrons was
one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations; they
will smooth your course of love, confound your enemies, find you
treasure, or secure you an inheritance. This person was struck with the
lad's natural qualifications for apprenticeship to his trade, and finding
him as much attracted by rascality as attractive in appearance, gave him
a regular training as accomplice, satellite, and attendant. His own
ostensible profession was medicine, and his knowledge included, like that
of Thoon the Egyptian's wife,
Many a virtuous herb, and many a bane;
to all which inheritance our friend succeeded. This teacher and lover of
his was a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius, and
acquainted with all his heroics. And now you know the atmosphere in which
Alexander lived.
By the time his beard had come, the Tyanean was dead, and he found
himself in straits; for the personal attractions which might once have
been a resource were diminished. He now formed great designs, which he
imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order, a
man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas.
The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing 'fat-heads,'
as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these
they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her
desire for admiration; they got sufficient supplies out of her, and
accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia. She came from Pella, which
had been a flourishing place under the Macedonian kingdom, but has now a
poor and much reduced population.
There is here a breed of large serpents, so tame and gentle that women
make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on
them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the
breast like infants. To these facts is probably to be referred the common
story about Olympias when she was with child of Alexander; it was
doubtless one of these that was her bed-fellow. Well, the two saw these
creatures, and bought the finest they could get for a few pence.
And from this point, as Thucydides might say, the war takes its
beginning. These ambitious scoundrels were quite devoid of scruples, and
they had now joined forces; it could not escape their penetration that
human life is under the absolute dominion of two mighty principles, fear
and hope, and that any one who can make these serve his ends may be sure
of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by
the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a
knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and
fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae; it was at the bidding of the
two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore-
knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their
golden ingots. All this they turned over and debated, and it issued in
the resolve to establish an oracle. If it were successful, they looked
for immediate wealth and prosperity; the result surpassed their most
sanguine expectations.
The next things to be settled were, first the theatre of operations, and
secondly the plan of campaign. Cocconas favoured Chalcedon, as a
mercantile centre convenient both for Thrace and Bithynia, and accessible
enough for the province of Asia, Galatia, and tribes still further east.
Alexander, on the other hand, preferred his native place, urging very
truly that an enterprise like theirs required congenial soil to give it a
start, in the shape of 'fat-heads' and simpletons; that was a fair
description, he said, of the Paphlagonians beyond Abonutichus; they were
mostly superstitious and well-to-do; one had only to go there with some
one to play the flute, the tambourine, or the cymbals, set the proverbial
mantic sieve [Footnote: I have no information on Coscinomancy or sieve-
divination. 'This kind of divination was generally practised to discover
thieves ... They tied a thread to the sieve, by which it was upheld, then
prayed to the Gods to direct and assist them. After which they repeated
the names of the person suspected, and he at whose name the sieve whirled
round or moved was thought to have committed the fact' _Francklin's
Lucian._] a-spinning, and there they would all be gaping as if he were
a God from heaven.
This difference of opinion did not last long, and Alexander prevailed.
Discovering, however, that a use might after all be made of Chalcedon,
they went there first, and in the temple of Apollo, the oldest in the
place, they buried some brazen tablets, on which was the statement that
very shortly Asclepius, with his father Apollo, would pay a visit to
Pontus, and take up his abode at Abonutichus. The discovery of the
tablets took place as arranged, and the news flew through Bithynia and
Pontus, first of all, naturally, to Abonutichus. The people of that place
at once resolved to raise a temple, and lost no time in digging the
foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing
certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterwards died, I believe,
of a viper's bite.
Alexander meanwhile went on in advance; he had now grown his hair and
wore it in long curls; his doublet was white and purple striped, his
cloak pure white; he carried a scimetar in imitation of Perseus, from
whom he now claimed descent through his mother. The wretched
Paphlagonians, who knew perfectly well that his parentage was obscure and
mean on both sides, nevertheless gave credence to the oracle, which ran:
Lo, sprung from Perseus, and to Phoebus dear,
High Alexander, Podalirius' son!
Podalirius, it seems, was of so highly amorous a complexion that the
distance between Tricca and Paphlagonia was no bar to his union with
Alexander's mother. A Sibylline prophecy had also been found:
Hard by Sinope on the Euxine shore
Th' Italic age a fortress prophet sees.
To the first monad let thrice ten be added,
Five monads yet, and then a triple score:
Such the quaternion of th' alexic name.
[Footnote: In 1. 2 of the oracle, the Italic age is the Roman Empire; the
fortress prophet is one who belongs to a place ending in--tichus (fort).
11>> 3-5 mean: Take 1, 30, 5, 60 (the Greek symbols for which are the
letters of the alphabet A, L, E, X), and you will have four letters of
the name of your coming protector (alexic).]
This heroic entry into his long-left home placed Alexander conspicuously
before the public; he affected madness, and frequently foamed at the
mouth--a manifestation easily produced by chewing the herb soap-wort,
used by dyers; but it brought him reverence and awe. The two had long ago
manufactured and fitted up a serpent's head of linen; they had given it a
more or less human expression, and painted it very like the real article;
by a contrivance of horsehair, the mouth could be opened and shut, and a
forked black serpent tongue protruded, working on the same system. The
serpent from Pella was also kept ready in the house, to be produced at
the right moment and take its part in the drama--the leading part,
indeed.
In the fullness of time, his plan took shape. He went one night to the
temple foundations, still in process of digging, and with standing water
in them which had collected from the rainfall or otherwise; here he
deposited a goose egg, into which, after blowing it, he had inserted some
new-born reptile. He made a resting-place deep down in the mud for this,
and departed. Early next morning he rushed into the market-place, naked
except for a gold-spangled loin-cloth; with nothing but this and his
scimetar, and shaking his long loose hair, like the fanatics who collect
money in the name of Cybele, he climbed on to a lofty altar and delivered
a harangue, felicitating the city upon the advent of the God now to bless
them with his presence. In a few minutes nearly the whole population was
on the spot, women, old men, and children included; all was awe, prayer,
and adoration. He uttered some unintelligible sounds, which might have
been Hebrew or Phoenician, but completed his victory over his audience,
who could make nothing of what he said, beyond the constant repetition of
the names Apollo and Asclepius.
He then set off at a run for the future temple. Arrived at the excavation
and the already completed sacred fount, he got down into the water,
chanted in a loud voice hymns to Asclepius and Apollo, and invited the
God to come, a welcome guest, to the city. He next demanded a bowl, and
when this was handed to him, had no difficulty in putting it down at the
right place and scooping up, besides water and mud, the egg in which the
God had been enclosed; the edges of the aperture had been joined with wax
and white lead. He took the egg in his hand and announced that here he
held Asclepius. The people, who had been sufficiently astonished by the
discovery of the egg in the water, were now all eyes for what was to
come. He broke it, and received in his hollowed palm the hardly developed
reptile; the crowd could see it stirring and winding about his fingers;
they raised a shout, hailed the God, blessed the city, and every mouth
was full of prayers--for treasure and wealth and health and all the other
good things that he might give. Our hero now departed homewards, still
running, with the new-born Asclepius in his hands--the twice-born, too,
whereas ordinary men can be born but once, and born moreover not of
Coronis [Footnote: Coronis was the mother of Asclepius; 'corone' is Greek
for a crow.] nor even of her namesake the crow, but of a goose! After him
streamed the whole people, in all the madness of fanatic hopes.
He now kept the house for some days, in hopes that the Paphlagonians
would soon be drawn in crowds by the news. He was not disappointed; the
city was filled to overflowing with persons who had neither brains nor
individuality, who bore no resemblance to men that live by bread, and had
only their outward shape to distinguish them from sheep. In a small room
he took his seat, very imposingly attired, upon a couch. He took into his
bosom our Asclepius of Pella (a very fine and large one, as I observed),
wound its body round his neck, and let its tail hang down; there was
enough of this not only to fill his lap, but to trail on the ground also;
the patient creature's head he kept hidden in his armpit, showing the
linen head on one side of his beard exactly as if it belonged to the
visible body.
Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light
was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited,
carefully worked up, all a-flutter with expectation. As they came in,
they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little
crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking
serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed
forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit
had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world
like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill; he was
_in extremis_, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were
eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our
scoundrel's exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but
many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.
And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make
some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics; the poor uneducated
'fat-heads' might well be taken in when they handled the serpent--a
privilege conceded to all who choose--and saw in that dim light its head
with the mouth that opened and shut. It was an occasion for a Democritus,
nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence
was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if
he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been
perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a
lie and an impossibility.
By degrees Bithynia, Galatia, Thrace, came flocking in, every one who had
been present doubtless reporting that he had beheld the birth of the God,
and had touched him after his marvellous development in size and in
expression. Next came pictures and models, bronze or silver images, and
the God acquired a name. By divine command, metrically expressed, he was
to be known as Glycon. For Alexander had delivered the line:
Glycon my name, man's light, son's son to Zeus.
And now at last the object to which all this had led up, the giving of
oracular answers to all applicants, could be attained. The cue was taken
from Amphilochus in Cilicia. After the death and disappearance at Thebes
of his father Amphiaraus, Amphilochus, driven from his home, made his way
to Cilicia, and there did not at all badly by prophesying to the
Cilicians at the rate of threepence an oracle. After this precedent,
Alexander proclaimed that on a stated day the God would give answers to
all comers. Each person was to write down his wish and the object of his
curiosity, fasten the packet with thread, and seal it with wax, clay, or
other such substance. He would receive these, and enter the holy place
(by this time the temple was complete, and the scene all ready), whither
the givers should be summoned in order by a herald and an acolyte; he
would learn the God's mind upon each, and return the packets with their
seals intact and the answers attached, the God being ready to give a
definite answer to any question that might be put.
The trick here was one which would be seen through easily enough by a
person of your intelligence (or, if I may say so without violating
modesty, of my own), but which to the ordinary imbecile would have the
persuasiveness of what is marvellous and incredible. He contrived various
methods of undoing the seals, read the questions, answered them as seemed
good, and then folded, sealed, and returned them, to the great
astonishment of the recipients. And then it was, 'How could he possibly
know what I gave him carefully secured under a seal that defies
imitation, unless he were a true God, with a God's omniscience?'
Perhaps you will ask what these contrivances were; well, then--the
information may be useful another time. One of them was this. He would
heat a needle, melt with it the under part of the wax, lift the seal off,
and after reading warm the wax once more with the needle--both that below
the thread and that which formed the actual seal--and re-unite the two
without difficulty. Another method employed the substance called
collyrium; this is a preparation of Bruttian pitch, bitumen, pounded
glass, wax, and mastich. He kneaded the whole into collyrium, heated it,
placed it on the seal, previously moistened with his tongue, and so took
a mould. This soon hardened; he simply opened, read, replaced the wax,
and reproduced an excellent imitation of the original seal as from an
engraved stone. One more I will give you. Adding some gypsum to the glue
used in book-binding he produced a sort of wax, which was applied still
wet to the seal, and on being taken off solidified at once and provided a
matrix harder than horn, or even iron. There are plenty of other devices
for the purpose, to rehearse which would seem like airing one's
knowledge. Moreover, in your excellent pamphlets against the magians
(most useful and instructive reading they are) you have yourself
collected enough of them--many more than those I have mentioned.
So oracles and divine utterances were the order of the day, and much
shrewdness he displayed, eking out mechanical ingenuity with obscurity,
his answers to some being crabbed and ambiguous, and to others absolutely
unintelligible. He did however distribute warning and encouragement
according to his lights, and recommend treatments and diets; for he had,
as I originally stated, a wide and serviceable acquaintance with drugs;
he was particularly given to prescribing 'cytmides,' which were a salve
prepared from goat's fat, the name being of his own invention. For the
realization of ambitions, advancement, or successions, he took care never
to assign early dates; the formula was, 'All this shall come to pass when
it is my will, and when my prophet Alexander shall make prayer and
entreaty on your behalf.'
There was a fixed charge of a shilling the oracle. And, my friend, do not
suppose that this would not come to much; he made something like L3,000
_per annum_; people were insatiable--would take from ten to fifteen
oracles at a time. What he got he did not keep to himself, nor put it by
for the future; what with accomplices, attendants, inquiry agents, oracle
writers and keepers, amanuenses, seal-forgers, and interpreters, he had
now a host of claimants to satisfy.
He had begun sending emissaries abroad to make the shrine known in
foreign lands; his prophecies, discovery of runaways, conviction of
thieves and robbers, revelations of hidden treasure, cures of the sick,
restoration of the dead to life--all these were to be advertised. This
brought them running and crowding from all points of the compass; victims
bled, gifts were presented, and the prophet and disciple came off better
than the God; for had not the oracle spoken?--
Give what ye give to my attendant priest;
My care is not for gifts, but for my priest.
A time came when a number of sensible people began to shake off their
intoxication and combine against him, chief among them the numerous
Epicureans; in the cities, the imposture with all its theatrical
accessories began to be seen through. It was now that he resorted to a
measure of intimidation; he proclaimed that Pontus was overrun with
atheists and Christians, who presumed to spread the most scandalous
reports concerning him; he exhorted Pontus, as it valued the God's
favour, to stone these men. Touching Epicurus, he gave the following
response. An inquirer had asked how Epicurus fared in Hades, and was
told:
Of slime is his bed,
And his fetters of lead.
The prosperity of the oracle is perhaps not so wonderful, when one learns
what sensible, intelligent questions were in fashion with its votaries.
Well, it was war to the knife between him and Epicurus, and no wonder.
What fitter enemy for a charlatan who patronized miracles and hated
truth, than the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and was in
solitary possession of that truth? As for the Platonists, Stoics,
Pythagoreans, they were his good friends; he had no quarrel with them.
But the unmitigated Epicurus, as he used to call him, could not but be
hateful to him, treating all such pretensions as absurd and puerile.
Alexander consequently loathed Amastris beyond all the cities of Pontus,
knowing what a number of Lepidus's friends and others like-minded it
contained. He would not give oracles to Amastrians; when he once did, to
a senator's brother, he made himself ridiculous, neither hitting upon a
presentable oracle for himself, nor finding a deputy equal to the
occasion. The man had complained of colic, and what he meant to prescribe
was pig's foot dressed with mallow. The shape it took was:
In basin hallowed
Be pigments mallowed.
I have mentioned that the serpent was often exhibited by request; he was
not completely visible, but the tail and body were exposed, while the
head was concealed under the prophet's dress. By way of impressing the
people still more, he announced that he would induce the God to speak,
and give his responses without an intermediary. His simple device to this
end was a tube of cranes' windpipes, which he passed, with due regard to
its matching, through the artificial head, and, having an assistant
speaking into the end outside, whose voice issued through the linen
Asclepius, thus answered questions. These oracles were called
_autophones_, and were not vouchsafed casually to any one, but reserved
for officials, the rich, and the lavish.
It was an autophone which was given to Severian regarding the invasion of
Armenia. He encouraged him with these lines:
Armenia, Parthia, cowed by thy fierce spear,
To Rome, and Tiber's shining waves, thou com'st,
Thy brow with leaves and radiant gold encircled.
Then when the foolish Gaul took his advice and invaded, to the total
destruction of himself and his army by Othryades, the adviser expunged
that oracle from his archives and substituted the following:
Vex not th' Armenian land; it shall not thrive;
One in soft raiment clad shall from his bow
Launch death, and cut thee off from life and light.
For it was one of his happy thoughts to issue prophecies after the event
as antidotes to those premature utterances which had not gone right.
Frequently he promised recovery to a sick man before his death, and after
it was at no loss for second thoughts:
No longer seek to arrest thy fell disease;
Thy fate is manifest, inevitable.
Knowing the fame of Clarus, Didymus, and Mallus for sooth-saying much
like his own, he struck up an alliance with them, sending on many of his
clients to those places. So
Hie thee to Clarus now, and hear my sire.
And again,
Draw near to Branchidae and counsel take.
Or
Seek Mallus; be Amphilochus thy counsellor.
So things went within the borders of Ionia, Cilicia, Paphlagonia, and
Galatia. When the fame of the oracle travelled to Italy and entered Rome,
the only question was, who should be first; those who did not come in
person sent messages, the powerful and respected being the keenest of
all. First and foremost among these was Rutilianus; he was in most
respects an excellent person, and had filled many high offices in Rome;
but he suffered from religious mania, holding the most extraordinary
beliefs on that matter; show him a bit of stone smeared with unguents or
crowned with flowers, and he would incontinently fall down and worship,
and linger about it praying and asking for blessings. The reports about
our oracle nearly induced him to throw up the appointment he then held,
and fly to Abonutichus; he actually did send messenger upon messenger.
His envoys were ignorant servants, easily taken in. They came back having
really seen certain things, relating others which they probably thought
they had seen and heard, and yet others which they deliberately invented
to curry favour with their master. So they inflamed the poor old man and
drove him into confirmed madness.
He had a wide circle of influential friends, to whom he communicated the
news brought by his successive messengers, not without additional touches
of his own. All Rome was full of his tales; there was quite a commotion,
the gentlemen of the Court being much fluttered, and at once taking
measures to learn something of their own fate. The prophet gave all who
came a hearty welcome, gained their goodwill by hospitality and costly
gifts, and sent them off ready not merely to report his answers, but to
sing the praises of the God and invent miraculous tales of the shrine and
its guardian.
This triple rogue now hit upon an idea which would have been too clever
for the ordinary robber. Opening and reading the packets which reached
him, whenever he came upon an equivocal, compromising question, he
omitted to return the packet; the sender was to be under his thumb, bound
to his service by the terrifying recollection of the question he had
written down. You know the sort of things that wealthy and powerful
personages would be likely to ask. This blackmail brought him in a good
income.
I should like to quote you one or two of the answers given to Rutilianus.
He had a son by a former wife, just old enough for advanced teaching. The
father asked who should be his tutor, and was told,
Pythagoras, and the mighty battle-bard.
When the child died a few days after, the prophet was abashed, and quite
unable to account for this summary confutation. However, dear good
Rutilianus very soon restored the oracle's credit by discovering that
this was the very thing the God had foreshown; he had not directed him to
choose a living teacher; Pythagoras and Homer were long dead, and
doubtless the boy was now enjoying their instructions in Hades. Small
blame to Alexander if he had a taste for dealings with such specimens of
humanity as this.
Another of Rutilianus's questions was, Whose soul he had succeeded to,
and the answer:
First thou wast Peleus' son, and next Menander;
Then thine own self; next, a sunbeam shalt be;
And nine score annual rounds thy life shall measure.
At seventy, he died of melancholy, not waiting for the God to pay in
full.
That was an autophone too. Another time Rutilianus consulted the oracle
on the choice of a wife. The answer was express:
Wed Alexander's daughter and Selene's.
He had long ago spread the report that the daughter he had had was by
Selene: she had once seen him asleep, and fallen in love, as is her way
with handsome sleepers. The sensible Rutilianus lost no time, but sent
for the maiden at once, celebrated the nuptials, a sexagenarian
bridegroom, and lived with her, propitiating his divine mother-in-law
with whole hecatombs, and reckoning himself now one of the heavenly
company.
His finger once in the Italian pie, Alexander devoted himself to getting
further. Sacred envoys were sent all over the Roman Empire, warning the
various cities to be on their guard against pestilence and
conflagrations, with the prophet's offers of security against them. One
oracle in particular, an autophone again, he distributed broadcast at a
time of pestilence. It was a single line:
Phoebus long-tressed the plague-cloud shall dispel.
This was everywhere to be seen written up on doors as a prophylactic. Its
effect was generally disappointing; for it somehow happened that the
protected houses were just the ones to be desolated. Not that I would
suggest for a moment that the line was their destruction; but,
accidentally no doubt, it did so fall out. Possibly common people put too
much confidence in the verse, and lived carelessly without troubling to
help the oracle against its foe; were there not the words fighting their
battle, and long-tressed Phoebus discharging his arrows at the pestilence?
In Rome itself he established an intelligence bureau well manned with his
accomplices. They sent him people's characters, forecasts of their
questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready
before the messengers reached him.
It was with his eye on this Italian propaganda, too, that he took a
further step. This was the institution of mysteries, with hierophants and
torch-bearers complete. The ceremonies occupied three successive days. On
the first, proclamation was made on the Athenian model to this effect:
'If there be any atheist or Christian or Epicurean here spying upon our
rites, let him depart in haste; and let all such as have faith in the God
be initiated and all blessing attend them.' He led the litany with,
'Christians, avaunt!' and the crowd responded, 'Epicureans, avaunt!' Then
was presented the child-bed of Leto and birth of Apollo, the bridal of
Coronis, Asclepius born. The second day, the epiphany and nativity of the
God Glycon.
On the third came the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander's mother; this
was called Torch-day, and torches were used. The finale was the loves of
Selene and Alexander, and the birth of Rutilianus's wife. The torch-
bearer and hierophant was Endymion-Alexander. He was discovered lying
asleep; to him from heaven, represented by the ceiling, enter as Selene
one Rutilia, a great beauty, and wife of one of the Imperial procurators.
She and Alexander were lovers off the stage too, and the wretched husband
had to look on at their public kissing and embracing; if there had not
been a good supply of torches, things might possibly have gone even
further. Shortly after, he reappeared amidst a profound hush, attired as
hierophant; in a loud voice he called, 'Hail, Glycon!', whereto the
Eumolpidae and Ceryces of Paphlagonia, with their clod-hopping shoes and
their garlic breath, made sonorous response, 'Hail, Alexander!'
The torch ceremony with its ritual skippings often enabled him to bestow
a glimpse of his thigh, which was thus discovered to be of gold; it was
presumably enveloped in cloth of gold, which glittered in the lamp-light.
This gave rise to a debate between two wiseacres, whether the golden
thigh meant that he had inherited Pythagoras's soul, or merely that their
two souls were alike; the question was referred to Alexander himself, and
King Glycon relieved their perplexity with an oracle:
Waxes and wanes Pythagoras' soul: the seer's
Is from the mind of Zeus an emanation.
His Father sent him, virtuous men to aid,
And with his bolt one day shall call him home.
I will now give you a conversation between Glycon and one Sacerdos of
Tius; the intelligence of the latter you may gauge from his questions. I
read it inscribed in golden letters in Sacerdos's house at Tius. 'Tell
me, lord Glycon,' said he, 'who you are.' 'The new Asclepius.' 'Another,
different from the former one? Is that the meaning?' 'That it is not
lawful for you to learn.' 'And how many years will you sojourn and
prophesy among us?' 'A thousand and three.' 'And after that, whither will
you go?' 'To Bactria; for the barbarians too must be blessed with my
presence.' 'The other oracles, at Didymus and Clarus and Delphi, have
they still the spirit of your grandsire Apollo, or are the answers that
now come from them forgeries?' 'That, too, desire not to know; it is not
lawful.' 'What shall I be after this life?' 'A camel; then a horse; then
a wise man, no less a prophet than Alexander.' Such was the conversation.
There was added to it an oracle in verse, inspired by the fact that
Sacerdos was an associate of Lepidus:
Shun Lepidus; an evil fate awaits him.
As I have said, Alexander was much afraid of Epicurus, and the solvent
action of his logic on imposture.
On one occasion, indeed, an Epicurean got himself into great trouble by
daring to expose him before a great gathering. He came up and addressed
him in a loud voice. 'Alexander, it was you who induced So-and-so the
Paphlagonian to bring his slaves before the governor of Galatia, charged
with the murder of his son who was being educated in Alexandria. Well,
the young man is alive, and has come back, to find that the slaves had
been cast to the beasts by your machinations.' What had happened was
this. The lad had sailed up the Nile, gone on to a Red Sea port, found a
vessel starting for India, and been persuaded to make the voyage. He
being long overdue, the unfortunate slaves supposed that he had either
perished in the Nile or fallen a victim to some of the pirates who
infested it at that time; so they came home to report his disappearance.
Then followed the oracle, the sentence, and finally the young man's
return with the story of his absence.
All this the Epicurean recounted. Alexander was much annoyed by the
exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront; he directed
the company to stone the man, on pain of being involved in his impiety
and called Epicureans. However, when they set to work, a distinguished
Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued him by
interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from
being stoned to death--as he richly deserved to be; what business had he
to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself
the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation?
This was a special case; but it was the practice for the names of
applicants to be read out the day before answers were given; the herald
asked whether each was to receive his oracle; and sometimes the reply
came from within, To perdition! One so repulsed could get shelter, fire
or water, from no man; he must be driven from land to land as a
blasphemer, an atheist, and--lowest depth of all--an Epicurean.
In this connexion Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous.
Coming across Epicurus's _Accepted Maxims_, the most admirable of
his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise
conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there
burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its
ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion:
The dotard's maxims to the flames be given.
The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon
its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it
produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and
marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour
that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches
and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and
frankness.
Perhaps the greatest example of our rogue's audacity is what I now come
to. Having easy access to Palace and Court by Rutilianus's influence, he
sent an oracle just at the crisis of the German war, when M. Aurelius was
on the point of engaging the Marcomanni and Quadi. The oracle required
that two lions should be flung alive into the Danube, with quantities of
sacred herbs and magnificent sacrifices. I had better give the words:
To rolling Ister, swoln with Heaven's rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling ye a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savour sweet that Indian air doth breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.
These directions were precisely followed; the lions swam across to the
enemy's bank, where they were clubbed to death by the barbarians, who
took them for dogs or a new kind of wolves; and our forces immediately
after met with a severe defeat, losing some twenty thousand men in one
engagement. This was followed by the Aquileian incident, in the course of
which that city was nearly lost. In view of these results, Alexander
warmed up that stale Delphian defence of the Croesus oracle: the God had
foretold a victory, forsooth, but had not stated whether Romans or
barbarians should have it.
The constant increase in the number of visitors, the inadequacy of
accommodation in the city, and the difficulty of finding provisions for
consultants, led to his introducing what he called _night oracles_.
He received the packets, slept upon them, in his own phrase, and gave
answers which the God was supposed to send him in dreams. These were
generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came
to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with
these, but wrote down any words that came into his head, the results
obtained corresponding well enough to his conception of the oracular.
There were regular interpreters in attendance, who made considerable sums
out of the recipients by expounding and unriddling these oracles. This
office contributed to his revenue, the interpreters paying him L250 each.
Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to persons who
had neither brought nor sent questions, and in fact did not exist. Here
is a specimen:
Who is't, thou askst, that with Calligenia
All secretly defiles thy nuptial bed?
The slave Protogenes, whom most thou trustest.
Him thou enjoyedst: he thy wife enjoys--
The fit return for that thine outrage done.
And know that baleful drugs for thee are brewed,
Lest thou or see or hear their evil deeds.
Close by the wall, at thy bed's head, make search.
Thy maid Calypso to their plot is privy.
The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a
moment's thought showed him the despicable trick.
He often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned
him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots
of theirs in the city. In these cases there was a long interval between
application and response, during which the packet might be securely
opened at leisure, and somebody found capable of translating the
question. The following is an answer given to a Scythian:
Morphi ebargulis for night
Chnenchicrank shall leave the light.
Another oracle to some one who neither came nor existed was in prose.
'Return the way thou earnest,' it ran; 'for he that sent thee hath this
day been slain by his neighbour Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus,
Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains.'
I must give you one or two of the answers that fell to my share. I asked
whether Alexander was bald, and having sealed it publicly with great
care, got a night oracle in reply:
Sabardalachu malach Attis was not he.
Another time I did up the same question--What was Homer's birthplace?--in
two packets given in under different names. My servant misled him by
saying, when asked what he came for, a cure for lung trouble; so the
answer to one packet was:
Cytmide and foam of steed the liniment give.
As for the other packet, he got the information that the sender was
inquiring whether the land or the sea route to Italy was preferable. So
he answered, without much reference to Homer:
Fare not by sea; land-travel meets thy need.
I laid a good many traps of this kind for him; here is another. I asked
only one question, but wrote outside the packet in the usual form, So-
and-so's eight Queries, giving a fictitious name and sending the eight
shillings. Satisfied with the payment of the money and the inscription on
the packet, he gave me eight answers to my one question. This was, When
will Alexander's imposture be detected? The answers concerned nothing in
heaven or earth, but were all silly and meaningless together. He
afterwards found out about this, and also that I had tried to dissuade
Rutilianus both from the marriage and from putting any confidence in the
oracle; so he naturally conceived a violent dislike for me. When
Rutilianus once put a question to him about me, the answer was:
Night-haunts and foul debauch are all his joy.
It is true his dislike was quite justified. On a certain occasion I was
passing through Abonutichus, with a spearman and a pikeman whom my friend
the governor of Cappadocia had lent me as an escort on my way to the sea.
Ascertaining that I was the Lucian he knew of, he sent me a very polite
and hospitable invitation. I found him with a numerous company; by good
luck I had brought my escort. He gave me his hand to kiss according to
his usual custom. I took hold of it as if to kiss, but instead bestowed
on it a sound bite that must have come near disabling it. The company,
who were already offended at my calling him Alexander instead of Prophet,
were inclined to throttle and beat me for sacrilege. But he endured the
pain like a man, checked their violence, and assured them that he would
easily tame me, and illustrate Glycon's greatness in converting his
bitterest foes to friends. He then dismissed them all, and argued the
matter with me: he was perfectly aware of my advice to Rutilianus; why
had I treated him so, when I might have been preferred by him to great
influence in that quarter? By this time I had realized my dangerous
position, and was only too glad to welcome these advances; I presently
went my way in all friendship with him. The rapid change wrought in me
greatly impressed the observers.
When I intended to sail, he sent me many parting gifts, and offered to
find us (Xenophon and me, that is; I had sent my father and family on to
Amastris) a ship and crew--which offer I accepted in all confidence. When
the passage was half over, I observed the master in tears arguing with
his men, which made me very uneasy. It turned out that Alexander's orders
were to seize and fling us overboard; in that case his war with me would
have been lightly won. But the crew were prevailed upon by the master's
tears to do us no harm. 'I am sixty years old, as you can see,' he said
to me; 'I have lived an honest blameless life so far, and I should not
like at my time of life, with a wife and children too, to stain my hands
with blood.' And with that preface he informed us what we were there for,
and what Alexander had told him to do.
He landed us at Aegiali, of Homeric fame, and thence sailed home. Some
Bosphoran envoys happened to be passing, on their way to Bithynia with
the annual tribute from their king Eupator. They listened kindly to my
account of our dangerous situation, I was taken on board, and reached
Amastris safely after my narrow escape. From that time it was war between
Alexander and me, and I left no stone unturned to get my revenge. Even
before his plot I had hated him, revolted by his abominable practices,
and I now busied myself with the attempt to expose him; I found plenty of
allies, especially in the circle of Timocrates the Heracleot philosopher.
But Avitus, the then governor of Bithynia and Pontus, restrained me, I
may almost say with prayers and entreaties. He could not possibly spoil
his relations with Rutilianus, he said, by punishing the man, even if he
could get clear evidence against him. Thus arrested in my course, I did
not persist in what must have been, considering the disposition of the
judge, a fruitless prosecution.
Among instances of Alexander's presumption, a high place must be given to
his petition to the Emperor: the name of Abonutichus was to be changed to
Ionopolis; and a new coin was to be struck, with a representation on the
obverse of Glycon, and, on the reverse, Alexander bearing the garlands
proper to his paternal grandfather Asclepius, and the famous scimetar of
his maternal ancestor Perseus.
He had stated in an oracle that he was destined to live to a hundred and
fifty, and then die by a thunderbolt; he had in fact, before he reached
seventy, an end very sad for a son of Podalirius, his leg mortifying from
foot to groin and being eaten of worms; it then proved that he was bald,
as he was forced by pain to let the doctors make cooling applications to
his head, which they could not do without removing his wig.
So ended Alexander's heroics; such was the catastrophe of his tragedy;
one would like to find a special providence in it, though doubtless
chance must have the credit. The funeral celebration was to be worthy of
his life, taking the form of a contest--for possession of the oracle. The
most prominent of the impostors his accomplices referred it to
Rutilianus's arbitration which of them should be selected to succeed to
the prophetic office and wear the hierophantic oracular garland. Among
these was numbered the grey-haired physician Paetus, dishonouring equally
his grey hairs and his profession. But Steward-of-the-Games Rutilianus
sent them about their business ungarlanded, and continued the defunct in
possession of his holy office.
My object, dear friend, in making this small selection from a great mass
of material has been twofold. First, I was willing to oblige a friend and
comrade who is for me the pattern of wisdom, sincerity, good humour,
justice, tranquillity, and geniality. But secondly I was still more
concerned (a preference which you will be very far from resenting)
to strike a blow for Epicurus, that great man whose holiness and divinity
of nature were not shams, who alone had and imparted true insight into the
good, and who brought deliverance to all that consorted with him. Yet I
think casual readers too may find my essay not unserviceable, since it is
not only destructive, but, for men of sense, constructive also.
OF PANTOMIME
[Footnote: 'Pantomime' has been chosen as the most natural translation of
_orchaesis_, which in this dialogue has reference for the most part to the
ballet-dancer (_pantomimus_) of imperial times. On the other hand,
Lycinus, in order to establish the antiquity and the universality of an
art that for all practical purposes dates only from the Augustan era, and
(despite the Greek artists) is Roman in origin, avails himself of the
wider meaning of _orchaesis_ to give us the historic and prehistoric
associations of _dance_ in Greece and elsewhere; and in such passages it
seemed advisable to sacrifice consistency, and to translate _orchaesis_
dance.]
_Lycinus. Crato_
_Ly_. Here are heavy charges, Crato; I suppose you have been getting
up this subject for some time. You are not content with attacking the
whole pantomimic art, practical and theoretic; we too, the pleased
spectators thereof, come in for our share: we have been lavishing our
admiration, it seems, on effeminate triflers. And now let me show you how
completely you have been mistaken; you will find that the art you have
been maligning is the greatest boon of our existence. There is some
excuse for your strictures: how should you know any better, confirmed
ascetic that you are, believing that virtue consists in being
uncomfortable?
_Cr_. Now, my dear sir, can any one who calls himself a man, and an
educated man, and in some sort a student of philosophy,--can such a one
leave those higher pursuits, leave communing with the sages of old, to
sit still and listen to the sound of a flute, and watch the antics of an
effeminate creature got up in soft raiment to sing lascivious songs and
mimic the passions of prehistoric strumpets, of Rhodopes and Phaedras and
Parthenopes, to the accompaniment of twanging string and shrilling pipe
and clattering heel? It is too absurd: these are not amusements for a
gentleman; not amusements for Lycinus. When I first heard of your
spending your time in this way, I was divided betwixt shame and
indignation, to think that you could so far forget Plato and Chrysippus
and Aristotle, as to sit thus having your ears tickled with a feather. If
you want amusements, are there not a thousand things _worth_ seeing
and hearing? Can you not hear classical music performed at the great
festivals? Are there not lofty tragedy and brilliant comedy,--things that
have been deemed worthy of state recognition? My friend, you have a long
reckoning to settle with men of learning, if you would not be repudiated
altogether, and expelled from the congregation of the wise. I think your
best course will be a point-blank denial: declare flatly that you never
did anything of the kind. Anyhow, you must watch your conduct for the
future: we do not want to find that our Lycinus has changed his sex, and
become a Bacchante or a Lydian damsel. That would be as much to our
discredit as to yours: for ours should be Odysseus's part,--to tear you
from the lotus, and bring you back to your accustomed pursuits; to save
you from the clutches of these stage Sirens before it is too late. The
Sirens, after all, did but plot against men's ears; it needed but a
little wax, and a man might sail past them uninjured: but yours is a
captivity of ear and eye, of body and soul.
_Ly_. Goodness gracious! All the Cynic in you is loose, and snarls
at me. At the same time, I think your Lotus-and-Siren simile is rather
off the point: you see, the people who ate the Lotus and listened to the
Sirens paid for the gratification of ear and palate with their lives:
whereas I not only have a great deal more enjoyment than they had, but am
all the better for it. I have experienced no oblivion of my domestic
affairs, nor blindness to my own interests; in fact--if I may venture to
say so--you will find my penetration and practical wisdom considerably
increased by my theatrical experiences. Homer has it exactly: the
spectator
Returns a gladder and a wiser man.
_Cr_. Dear, dear! Yours is a sad case, Lycinus. You are not even ashamed;
you seem quite pleased with yourself. That is the worst of it: there seems
no hope of your recovery, while you can actually commend the mire in which
you wallow.
_Ly_. Now, Crato,--you talk of pantomimes and theatres,--have you seen
these performances yourself, that you are so hard on them? or do you
decide that they are 'foul mire' without personal experience? If you have
seen them, you are just as bad as I am; and if not, are you justified in
censuring them? does it not savour of over-confidence, to condemn what
you know nothing about?
_Cr_. Truly that would be the climax: that I should show my long beard and
white hairs amid that throng of women and lunatics; and clap and yell in
unseemly rapture over the vile contortions of an abandoned buffoon.
_Ly_. I can make allowance for you. But wait till I have prevailed on you
to give it a fair trial, to accept the judgement of your own eyes: after
that you will never be happy till you have secured the best seat in the
theatre, where you may hear every syllable, mark every gesture.
_Cr_. While this beard is yet unplucked, these limbs unshaven, God forbid
that I should ever find happiness in such things. As it is, my poor
friend, I see that _you_ are wholly possessed.
_Ly_. Now suppose you were to abstain from further abuse, and hear what I
have to say of the merits of Pantomime; of the manner in which it combines
profit with amusement; instructing, informing, perfecting the intelligence
of the beholder; training his eyes to lovely sights, filling his ears with
noble sounds, revealing a beauty in which body and soul alike have their
share. For that music and dancing are employed to produce these results is
no disparagement of the art; it is rather a recommendation.
_Cr_. I have not much time for listening to a madman's discourse in praise
of his own madness. However--if you must deluge me with nonsense--I am
prepared to do you that friendly office. My ears are at your service: they
need no wax to render them deaf to foolishness. Henceforth I will be
silent: speak on;--no one is listening.
_Ly._ Thank you, Crato; just what I wanted. As to 'foolishness,' that
remains to be seen. Now, to begin with, you seem to be quite ignorant of
the antiquity of the pantomimic art. It is not a new thing; it does not
date from to-day or yesterday; not, that is to say, from our grandfathers'
times, nor from _their_ grandfathers' times. The best antiquarians, let me
tell you, trace dancing back to the creation of the universe; it is coeval
with that Eros who was the beginning of all things. In the dance of the
heavenly bodies, in the complex involutions whereby the planets are
brought into harmonious intercourse with the fixed stars, you have an
example of that art in its infancy, which, by gradual development, by
continual improvements and additions, seems at length to have reached its
climax in the subtle harmonious versatility of modern Pantomime.
The first step, we learn, was taken by Rhea, who was so pleased with the
art that she introduced it among the Corybantes in Phrygia and the
Curetes in Crete. She was richly rewarded: for by their dancing they
saved her child Zeus, who owes it to them (nor can he with decency deny
it) that he escaped the paternal teeth. The dancing was performed in full
armour; sword clashed against shield, and inspired heels beat martial
time upon the ground. The art was presently taken up by the leading men
in Crete, who by dint of practice became admirable dancers; and this
applies not only to private persons, but to men of the first eminence,
and of royal blood. Thus Homer, when he calls Meriones a dancer, is not
disparaging him, but paying him a compliment: his dancing fame, it seems,
had spread not only throughout the Greek world, but even into the camp of
his enemies, the Trojans, who would observe, no doubt, on the field of
battle that agility and grace of movement which he had acquired as a
dancer. The passage runs as follows:
Meriones, great dancer though thou be,
My spear had stopped thy dancings,--
it did not, however, do so; his practice in that art enabling him,
apparently, to evade without difficulty any spears that might be hurled
at him.
I could mention a number of other heroes who went through a similar
course of training, and made a serious study of dancing: but I will
confine myself to the case of Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, and a
most eminent dancer. He it was who invented that beautiful dance called
after him the Pyrrhic; a circumstance which may be supposed to have
afforded more gratification to his father than his comeliness, or his
prowess in other respects. Thus Troy, impregnable till then, falls a
victim to the dancer's skill, and is levelled with the dust.
The Lacedaemonians, who are reputed the bravest of the Greeks, ever since
they learnt from Castor and Pollux the Caryatic (a form of dance which is
taught in the Lacedaemonian town of Caryae), will do nothing without the
accompaniment of the Muses: on the field of battle their feet keep time
to the flute's measured notes, and those notes are the signal for their
onset. Music and rhythm ever led them on to victory. To this day you may
see their young men dividing their attention between dance and drill;
when wrestling and boxing are over, their exercise concludes with the
dance. A flute-player sits in their midst, beating time with his foot,
while they file past and perform their various movements in rhythmic
sequence, the military evolutions being followed by dances, such as
Dionysus and Aphrodite love. Hence the song they sing is an invitation to
Aphrodite and the Loves to join in their dance and revel; while the other
(I should have said that they have two songs) contains instructions to
the dancers: 'Forward, lads: foot it lightly: reel it bravely' (i.e.
dance actively). It is the same with the chain dance, which is performed
by men and girls together, dancing alternately, so as to suggest the
alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active
steps are such as will hereafter be of use to him on the field of battle:
a maiden follows, with the modest movements that befit her sex; manly
vigour, maidenly reserve,--these are the beads of the necklace.
Similarly, their Gymnopaedia is but another form of dance.
You have read your Homer; so that I need say nothing of the Shield of
Achilles, with its choral dance, modelled on that which Daedalus designed
for Ariadne; nor of the two dancers ('tumblers,' he calls them) there
represented as leading the dance; nor again of the 'whirling dance of
youth,' so beautifully wrought thereon by Hephaestus. As to the
Phaeacians, living as they did in the lap of luxury, nothing is more
natural than that _they_ should have rejoiced in the dance. Odysseus, we
find, is particularly struck with this: he gazes with admiration on the
'twinkling of their feet.' In Thessaly, again, dancing was such a
prominent feature, that their rulers and generals were called 'Dancers-in-
chief,' as may be seen from the inscriptions on the statues of their great
men: 'Elected Prime Dancer,' we read; and again: 'This statue was erected
at the public expense to commemorate Ilation's well-danced victory.'
I need hardly observe that among the ancient mysteries not one is to be
found that does not include dancing. Orpheus and Musaeus, the best
dancers of their time, were the founders of these rites; and their
ordinances show the value they attached to rhythm and dance as elements
in religion. To illustrate this point would be to make the ceremonial
known to the uninitiated: but so much is matter of common knowledge, that
persons who divulge the mysteries are popularly spoken of as 'dancing
them out.' In Delos, not even sacrifice could be offered without dance
and musical accompaniment. Choirs of boys gathered and performed their
dance to the sound of flute and lyre, and the best of them were chosen to
act characters; the songs written for these occasions were known as
chorales; and the ancient lyric poetry abounded in such compositions.
But I need not confine myself to the Greeks. The Indians, when they rise
to offer their morning salutation to the Sun, do not consider it enough
to kiss their hands after the Greek fashion; turning to the East, they
silently greet the God with movements that are designed to represent his
own course through the heavens; and with this substitute for our prayers
and sacrifices and choral celebrations they seek his favour at the
beginning of every day and at its close. The Ethiopians go further, and
dance even while they fight; the shaft an Ethiopian draws from that
arrow-crown that serves him in place of a quiver will never be discharged
before he has intimidated his enemy with the threatening gestures of the
war-dance.
Having dealt with India and Ethiopia, let us now consider the neighbouring
country of Egypt. If I am not mistaken, the Egyptian Proteus of ancient
legend is no other than a dancer, whose mimetic skill enables him to adapt
himself to every character: in the activity of his movements, he is liquid
as water, rapid as fire; he is the raging lion, the savage panther, the
trembling bough; he is what he will. The legend takes these data, and
gives them a supernatural turn,--for mimicry substituting metamorphosis.
Our modern pantomimes have the same gift, and Proteus himself sometimes
appears as the subject of their rapid transformations. And it may be
conjectured that in that versatile lady Empusa we have but another artist
of the same kind, mythologically treated.
Our attention is next claimed by the Roman dance of the Salii, a
priesthood drawn from the noblest families; the dance is performed in
honour of Mars, the most warlike of the Gods, and is of a particularly
solemn and sacred character. According to a Bithynian legend, which
agrees well with this Italian institution, Priapus, a war-like divinity
(probably one of the Titans, or of the Idaean Dactyls, whose profession
it was to teach the use of arms), was entrusted by Hera with the care of
her son Ares, who even in childhood was remarkable for his courage and
ferocity. Priapus would not put weapons into his hands till he had turned
him out a perfect dancer; and he was rewarded by Hera with a tenth part
of all Ares's spoils. As to the rites of Dionysus, you know, without my
telling you, that they consisted in dancing from beginning to end. Of the
three main types of dance, the cordax, the sicinnis, and the emmelia,
each was the invention and bore the name of one of the Satyrs, his
followers. Assisted by this art, and accompanied by these revellers, he
conquered Tyrrhenians, Indians, Lydians, dancing those warlike tribes
into submission.
Then beware, my enlightened friend, of the guilt of sacrilege. Will you
attack the holy mystic art in which so many Gods delight; by which their
worshippers do them honour; which affords so much pleasure, so much
useful instruction? To return once more to the poets: when I think of
your affection for Homer and Hesiod, I am amazed to find you disputing
the preeminence they assign to the dance. Homer, in enumerating all that
is sweetest and best, mentions sleep, love, song, and dance; but of these
dance alone is 'faultless.' He testifies, moreover, to the 'sweetness' of
song: now our art includes 'sweet song' as well as the 'faultless dance'
which you take upon you to censure. Again, in another passage we read:
To one the God hath given warlike deeds:
But to another dance and lovely song.
And lovely indeed is the song that accompanies the dance; it is the Gods'
best gift. Homer seems to divide all things under the two heads of war
and peace; and among the things of peace he singles out these two as the
best counterpart to the things of war. Hesiod, not speaking from hearsay,
but coming fresh from the sight of the Muses' morning dance, has this
high tribute to them in the beginning of his poem:
Their dainty feet round the dark waters dance,
about the altar of Zeus.--My dear sir, your onslaught upon the dance is
little short of blasphemy.
Socrates--that wisest of men, if we may accept the judgement of the
Pythian oracle--not only approved of dancing, but made a careful study of
it; and, in his zeal for grace and elegance, for harmonious movement and
carriage of the body, thought it no shame, reverend sage that he was, to
rank this among the most important branches of learning. And well might
he have an enthusiasm for dancing, who scrupled not to study the humblest
arts; who frequented the schools of the flute-girls, and could stoop to
learn wisdom from the mouth of an Aspasia. Yet in his days the art was in
its infancy, its beauties undeveloped. Had Socrates seen the artists who
have made modern Pantomime what it is, he would assuredly have given it
his exclusive attention, and assigned it the first place in the education
of youth.
I think you forget, when you advocate the claims of tragedy and comedy,
that each of them has its own peculiar form of dance; tragedy its
emmelia, comedy its cordax, supplemented occasionally by the sicinnis.
You began by asserting the superiority of tragedy, of comedy, and of the
periodic performances on flute and lyre, which you pronounce to be
respectable, because they are included in public competitions. Let us
take each of these and compare its merits with those of dancing. The
flute and the lyre, to be sure, we might leave out of the discussion, as
these have their part to play in the dance.
In forming our estimate of tragedy, let us first consider its externals--
the hideous, appalling spectacle that the actor presents. His high boots
raise him up out of all proportion; his head is hidden under an enormous
mask; his huge mouth gapes upon the audience as if he would swallow them;
to say nothing of the chest-pads and stomach-pads with which he contrives
to give himself an artificial corpulence, lest his deficiency in this
respect should emphasize his disproportionate height. And in the middle
of it all is the actor, shouting away, now high, now low,--_chanting_ his
iambics as often as not; could anything be more revolting than this sing-
song recitation of tragic woes? The actor is a mouthpiece: that is his
sole responsibility;--the poet has seen to the rest, ages since. From an
Andromache or a Hecuba, one can endure recitative: but when Heracles
himself comes upon the stage, and so far forgets himself, and the respect
due to the lion-skin and club that he carries, as to deliver a solo, no
reasonable person can deny that such a performance is in execrable taste.
Then again, your objection to dancing--that men act women's parts--is
equally applicable to tragedy and comedy, in which indeed there are more
women than men.
By comedy, the absurdity of the masks--of a Davus, for instance, or a
Tibius, or a cook--is actually claimed as one of its attractions. On the
other hand, I need not tell you how decent, how seemly, is the dancer's
attire; any one who is not blind can see that for himself. His very mask
is elegant, and well adapted to his part; there is no gaping here; the
lips are closed, for the dancer has plenty of other voices at his
service. In old days, dancer and singer were one: but the violent
exercise caused shortness of breath; the song suffered for it, and it was
found advisable to have the singing done independently.
As to the subjects treated, they are the same for both, Pantomime
differing from tragedy only in the infinite variety of its plots, and in
the superior ingenuity and learning displayed in them. Dancing may not be
included in our public competitions; but the reason is that the stewards
regard it as a matter too high and solemn to be subjected to criticism. I
forbear to add that in one Italian city--the greatest of the Chalcidian
name--a special lustre has been added to the public games by the
introduction of a dancing competition.
And now, before I proceed further, I wish to offer an explanation of
themany omissions I have made, which might otherwise be attributed to
ignorance. I am well aware that the subject has already been dealt with
by a number of writers, who have chiefly occupied themselves with a
description of the various forms of dance, and a catalogue of their
names, their characters, and their inventors; and this they regard as a
proof of erudition. Such work I leave to the ambition of dullards and
pedants, as foreign to my own purpose. I would have you observe, and bear
in mind, that I do not propose to make a complete history of the art of
dancing; nor is it my object to enumerate the names of dances, except so
far as I have already done, in handling a few of the principal types: on
the contrary, I am chiefly concerned with pointing out the profit and
pleasure to be derived from modern Pantomime, which did not begin to take
its present admirable form in ancient days, but only in the time of
Augustus, or thereabouts. In those earlier times we have but the
beginnings of the art; the tree is taking root; the flower and the fruit
have reached their perfection only in our own day, and it is with these
that I have to do. The tongs-dance, the crane-dance, and others I pass
over because they are alien to my subject; similarly, if I have said
nothing of the Phrygian dance,--that riotous convivial fling, which was
performed by energetic yokels to the piping of a flute-girl, and which
still prevails in country districts,--I have omitted it not from
ignorance, but because it has no connexion with the Pantomime of to-day.
I have the authority of Plato, in his _Laws_, for approving some
forms of dance and rejecting others; he there examines the dance from the
two points of view of pleasure and utility, banishes those forms that are
unseemly, and selects others for his recommendation.
Of dancing then, in the strict sense of the word, I have said enough. To
enlarge further upon its history would be pedantic. And now I come to the
pantomime. What must be his qualifications? what his previous training?
what his studies? what his subsidiary accomplishments? You will find that
his is no easy profession, nor lightly to be undertaken; requiring as it
does the highest standard of culture in all its branches, and involving a
knowledge not of music only, but of rhythm and metre, and above all of
your beloved philosophy, both natural and moral, the subtleties of
dialectic alone being rejected as serving no useful purpose. Rhetoric,
too, in so far as that art is concerned with the exposition of human
character and human passions, claims a share of its attention. Nor can it
dispense with the painter's and the sculptor's arts; in its close
observance of the harmonious proportions that these teach, it is the
equal of an Apelles or a Phidias. But above all Mnemosyne, and her
daughter Polyhymnia, must be propitiated by an art that would remember
all things. Like Calchas in Homer, the pantomime must know all 'that is,
that was, that shall be'; nothing must escape his ever ready memory.
Faithfully to represent his subject, adequately to express his own
conceptions, to make plain all that might be obscure;--these are the
first essentials for the pantomime, to whom no higher compliment could be
paid than Thucydides's tribute to Pericles, who, he says, 'could not only
conceive a wise policy, but render it intelligible to his hearers'; the
intelligibility, in the present case, depending on clearness of
gesticulation.
For his materials, he must draw continually, as I have said, upon his
unfailing memory of ancient story; and memory must be backed by taste and
judgement. He must know the history of the world, from the time when it
first emerged from Chaos down to the days of Egyptian Cleopatra. These
limitations we will concede to the pantomime's wide field of knowledge;
but within them he must be familiar with every detail:--the mutilation of
Uranus, the origin of Aphrodite, the battle of Titans, the birth of Zeus,
Rhea's deception, her substitution of a stone for her child, the binding
of Cronus, the partition of the world between the three brothers. Again,
the revolt of the Giants, Prometheus's theft of fire, his creation of
mankind, and the punishment that followed; the might of Eros and of
Anteros, the wanderings of the island Delos, the travail of Leto, the
Python's destruction, the evil design of Tityus, the flight of eagles,
whereby the earth's centre was discovered. He must know of Deucalion, in
whose days the whole world suffered shipwreck, of that single chest
wherein were preserved the remnants of the human race, of the new
generation born of stones; of the rending of Iacchus, the guile of Hera,
the fiery death of Semele, the double birth of Dionysus; of Athene and
Hephaestus and Erichthonius, of the strife for the possession of Athens,
of Halirrhothius and that first trial on the Areopagus, and all the
legendary lore of Attica. Above all, the wanderings of Demeter, the
finding of Persephone, the hospitality of Celeus; Triptolemus's plough,
Icarius's vineyard, and the sad end of Erigone; the tale of Boreas and
Orithyia, of Theseus, and of Aegeus; of Medea in Greece, and of her
flight thereafter into Persia, and of Erechtheus's daughters and
Pandion's, and all that they did and suffered in Thrace. Acamas, and
Phyllis, and that first rape of Helen, and the expedition of Castor and
Pollux against Athens, and the fate of Hippolytus, and the return of the
Heraclids,--all these may fairly be included in the Athenian mythology,
from the vast bulk of which I select only these few examples.
Then in Megara we have Nisus, his daughter Scylla, and his purple lock;
the invasion of Minos, and his ingratitude towards his benefactress. Then
we come to Cithaeron, and the story of the Thebans, and of the race of
Labdacus; the settlement of Cadmus on the spot where the cow rested, the
dragon's teeth from which the Thebans sprang up, the transformation of
Cadmus into a serpent, the building of the walls of Thebes to the sound
of Amphion's lyre, the subsequent madness of the builder, the boast of
Niobe his wife, her silent grief; Pentheus, Actaeon, Oedipus, Heracles;
his labours and slaughter of his children.
Corinth, again, abounds in legends: of Glauce and of Creon; in earlier
days, of Bellerophon and Stheneboea, and of the strife between Posidon
and the Sun; and, later, of the frenzy of Athamas, of Nephele's children
and their flight through the air on the ram's back, and of the
deification of Ino and Melicertes. Next comes the story of Pelops's line,
of all that befell in Mycenae, and before Mycenae was; of Inachus and Io
and Argus her guardian; of Atreus and Thyestes and Aerope, of the golden
ram and the marriage of Pelopeia, the murder of Agamemnon and the
punishment of Clytemnestra; and before their days, the expedition of the
Seven against Thebes, the reception of the fugitives Tydeus and Polynices
by their father-in-law Adrastus; the oracle that foretold their fate, the
unburied slain, the death of Antigone, and that of Menoeceus.
Nor is any story more essential to the pantomime's purpose than that of
Hypsipyle and Archemorus in Nemea; and, in older days, the imprisonment
of Danae, the begetting of Perseus, his enterprise against the Gorgons;
and connected therewith is the Ethiopian narrative of Cassiopea, and
Cepheus, and Andromeda, all of whom the belief of later generations has
placed among the stars. To these must be added the ancient legend of
Aegyptus and Danaus, and of that guilty wedding-night.
Lacedaemon, too, supplies him with many similar subjects: Hyacinth, and
his rival lovers, Zephyr and Apollo, and the quoit that slew him, the
flower that sprang up from his blood, and the inscription of woe thereon;
the raising of Tyndareus from the dead, and the consequent wrath of
Zeusagainst Asclepius; again, the reception of Paris by Menelaus, and the
rape of Helen, the sequel to his award of the golden apple. For the
Spartan mythology must be held to include that of Troy, in all its
abundance and variety. Of all who fell at Troy, not one but supplies a
subject for the stage; and all--from the rape of Helen to the return of
the Greeks--must ever be borne in mind: the wanderings of Aeneas, the
love of Dido; and side by side with this the story of Orestes, and his
daring deeds in Scythia. And there are earlier episodes which will not be
out of place; they are all connected with the tale of Troy: such are the
seclusion of Achilles in Scyrus, the madness of Odysseus, the solitude of
Philoctetes, with the whole story of Odysseus's wanderings, of Circe and
Telegonus, of Aeolus, controller of the winds, down to the vengeance
wreaked upon the suitors of Penelope; and, earlier, Odysseus's plot
against Palamedes, the resentment of Nauplius, the frenzy of the one
Ajax, the destruction of the other on the rocks.
Elis, too, affords many subjects for the intending pantomime: Oenomaus,
Myrtilus, Cronus, Zeus, and that first Olympian contest. Arcadia, no less
rich in legendary lore, gives him the flight of Daphne, the
transformation of Callisto into a bear, the drunken riot of the Centaurs,
the birth of Pan, the love of Alpheus, and his submarine wanderings.
Extending our view, we find that Crete, too, may be laid under
contribution: Europa's bull, Pasiphae's, the Labyrinth, Ariadne, Phaedra,
Androgeos; Daedalus and Icarus; Glaucus, and the prophecy of Polyides;
and Talos, the island's brazen sentinel.
It is the same with Aetolia: there you will find Althaea, Meleager,
Atalanta, and the fatal brand; the strife of Achelous with Heracles, the
birth of the Sirens, the origin of the Echinades, those islands on which
Alcmaeon dwelt after his frenzy was past; and, following these, the story
of Nessus, and of Deianira's jealousy, which brought Heracles to the pyre
upon Oeta. Thrace, too, has much that is indispensable to the pantomime:
of the head of murdered Orpheus, that sang while it floated down the
stream upon his lyre; of Haemus and of Rhodope; and of the chastisement
of Lycurgus.
Thessalian story, richer still, tells of Pelias and Jason; of Alcestis;
and of the Argo with her talking keel and her crew of fifty youths; of
what befell them in Lemnos; of Aeetes, Medea's dream, the rending of
Absyrtus, the eventful flight from Colchis; and, in later days, of
Protesilaus and Laodamia.
Cross once more to Asia, and Samos awaits you, with the fall of
Polycrates, and his daughter's flight into Persia; and the ancient story
of Tantalus's folly, and of the feast that he gave the Gods; of butchered
Pelops, and his ivory shoulder.
In Italy, we have the Eridanus, Phaethon, and his poplar-sisters, who
wept tears of amber for his loss.
The pantomime must be familiar, too, with the story of the Hesperides,
and the dragon that guarded the golden fruit; with burdened Atlas, and
Geryon, and the driving of the oxen from Erythea; and every tale of
metamorphosis, of women turned into trees or birds or beasts, or (like
Caeneus and Tiresias) into men. From Phoenicia he must learn of Myrrha
and Adonis, who divides Assyria betwixt grief and joy; and in more modern
times of all that Antipater [Footnote: Not Antipater, but Antiochus, is
meant.] and Seleucus suffered for the love of Stratonice.
The Egyptian mythology is another matter: it cannot be omitted, but on
account of its mysterious character it calls for a more symbolical
exposition;--the legend of Epaphus, for instance, and that of Osiris, and
the conversion of the Gods into animals; and, in particular, their love
adventures, including those of Zeus himself, with his various
transformations.
Hades still remains to be added, with all its tragic tale of guilt and
the punishment of guilt, and the loyal friendship that brought Theseus
thither with Pirithous. In a word, all that Homer and Hesiod and our best
poets, especially the tragedians, have sung,--all must be known to the
pantomime. From the vast, nay infinite, mass of mythology, I have made
this trifling selection of the more prominent legends; leaving the rest
for poets to celebrate, for pantomimes to exhibit, and for your
imagination to supply from the hints already given; and all this the
artist must have stored up in his memory, ready to be produced when
occasion demands.
Since it is his profession to imitate, and to show forth his subject by
means of gesticulation, he, like the orators, must acquire lucidity;
every scene must be intelligible without the aid of an interpreter; to
borrow the expression of the Pythian oracle,
Dumb though he be, and speechless, he is heard
by the spectator. According to the story, this was precisely the
experience of the Cynic Demetrius. He had inveighed against Pantomime in
just your own terms. The pantomime, he said, was a mere appendage to
flute and pipe and beating feet; he added nothing to the action; his
gesticulations were aimless nonsense; there was no meaning in them;
people were hoodwinked by the silken robes and handsome mask, by the
fluting and piping and the fine voices, which served to set off what in
itself was nothing. The leading pantomime of the day--this was in Nero's
reign--was apparently a man of no mean intelligence; unsurpassed, in
fact, in wideness of range and in grace of execution. Nothing, I think,
could be more reasonable than the request he made of Demetrius, which
was, to reserve his decision till he had witnessed his performance, which
he undertook to go through without the assistance of flute or song. He
was as good as his word. The time-beaters, the flutes, even the chorus,
were ordered to preserve a strict silence; and the pantomime, left to his
own resources, represented the loves of Ares and Aphrodite, the tell-tale
Sun, the craft of Hephaestus, his capture of the two lovers in the net,
the surrounding Gods, each in his turn, the blushes of Aphrodite, the
embarrassment of Ares, his entreaties,--in fact the whole story.
Demetrius was ravished at the spectacle; nor could there be higher praise
than that with which he rewarded the performer. 'Man,' he shrieked at the
top of his voice, 'this is not seeing, but hearing and seeing, both:'tis
as if your hands were tongues!'
And before we leave Nero's times, I must tell you of the high tribute
paid to the art by a foreigner of the royal family of Pontus, who was
visiting the Emperor on business, and had been among the spectators of
this same pantomime. So convincing were the artist's gestures, as to
render the subject intelligible even to one who (being half a Greek)
could not follow the vocal accompaniment. When he was about to return to
his country, Nero, in taking leave of him, bade him choose what present
he would have, assuring him that his request should not be refused. 'Give
me,' said the Pontian, 'your great pantomime; no gift could delight me
more.' 'And of what use can he be to you in Pontus?' asked the Emperor.
'I have foreign neighbours, who do not speak our language; and it is not
easy to procure interpreters. Your pantomime could discharge that office
perfectly, as often as required, by means of his gesticulations.' So
profoundly had he been impressed with the extraordinary clearness of
pantomimic representation.
The pantomime is above all things an actor: that is his first aim, in the
pursuit of which (as I have observed) he resembles the orator, and
especially the composer of 'declamations,' whose success, as the
pantomime knows, depends like his own upon verisimilitude, upon the
adaptation of language to character: prince or tyrannicide, pauper or
farmer, each must be shown with the peculiarities that belong to him. I
must give you the comment of another foreigner on this subject. Seeing
five masks laid ready--that being the number of parts in the piece--and
only one pantomime, he asked who were going to play the other parts. He
was informed that the whole piece would be performed by a single actor.
'Your humble servant, sir,' cries our foreigner to the artist; 'I observe
that you have but one body: it had escaped me, that you possessed several
souls.'
The term 'pantomime,' which was introduced by the Italian Greeks, is an
apt one, and scarcely exaggerates the artist's versatility. 'Oh boy,'
cries the poet, in a beautiful passage,
As that sea-beast, whose hue
With each new rock doth suffer change,
So let thy mind free range
Through ev'ry land, shaping herself anew.
Most necessary advice, this, for the pantomime, whose task it is to
identify himself with his subject, and make himself part and parcel of
the scene that he enacts. It is his profession to show forth human
character and passion in all their variety; to depict love and anger,
frenzy and grief, each in its due measure. Wondrous art!--on the same
day, he is mad Athamas and shrinking Ino; he is Atreus, and again he is
Thyestes, and next Aegisthus or Aerope; all one man's work.
Other entertainments of eye or ear are but manifestations of a single
art: 'tis flute or lyre or song; 'tis moving tragedy or laughable comedy.
The pantomime is all-embracing in the variety of his equipment: flute and
pipe, beating foot and clashing cymbal, melodious recitative, choral
harmony. Other arts call out only one half of a man's powers--the bodily
or the mental: the pantomime combines the two. His performance is as much
an intellectual as a physical exercise: there is meaning in his
movements; every gesture has its significance; and therein lies his chief
excellence. The enlightened Lesbonax of Mytilene called pantomimes
'manual philosophers,' and used to frequent the theatre, in the
conviction that he came out of it a better man than he went in. And
Timocrates, his teacher, after accidentally witnessing a pantomimic
performance, exclaimed: 'How much have I lost by my scrupulous devotion
to philosophy!' I know not what truth there may be in Plato's analysis of
the soul into the three elements of spirit, appetite, and reason: but
each of the three is admirably illustrated by the pantomime; he shows us
the angry man, he shows us the lover, and he shows us every passion under
the control of reason; this last--like touch among the senses--is all-
pervading. Again, in his care for beauty and grace of movement, have we
not an illustration of the Aristotelian principle, which makes beauty a
third part of Good? Nay, I once heard some one hazard a remark, to the
effect that the philosophy of Pantomime went still further, and that in
the _silence_ of the characters a Pythagorean doctrine was shadowed
forth.
All professions hold out some object, either of utility or of pleasure:
Pantomime is the only one that secures both these objects; now the
utility that is combined with pleasure is doubled in value. Who would
choose to look on at a couple of young fellows spilling their blood in a
boxing-match, or wrestling in the dust, when he may see the same subject
represented by the pantomime, with the additional advantages of safety
and elegance, and with far greater pleasure to the spectator? The
vigorous movements of the pantomime--turn and twist, bend and spring--
afford at once a gratifying spectacle to the beholder and a wholesome
training to the performer; I maintain that no gymnastic exercise is its
equal for beauty and for the uniform development of the physical powers,
--of agility, suppleness, and elasticity, as of solid strength.
Consider then the universality of this art: it sharpens the wits, it
exercises the body, it delights the spectator, it instructs him in the
history of bygone days, while eye and ear are held beneath the spell of
flute and cymbal and of graceful dance. Would you revel in sweet song?
Nowhere can you procure that enjoyment in greater variety and perfection.
Would you listen to the clear melody of flute and pipe? Again the
pantomime supplies you. I say nothing of the excellent moral influence of
public opinion, as exercised in the theatre, where you will find the
evil-doer greeted with execration, and his victim with sympathetic tears.
The pantomime's most admirable quality I have yet to mention,--his
combination of strength and suppleness of limb; it is as if brawny
Heracles and soft Aphrodite were presented to us in one and the same
person.
I now propose to sketch out the mental and physical qualifications
necessary for a first-rate pantomime. Most of the former, indeed, I have
already mentioned: he must have memory, sensibility, shrewdness, rapidity
of conception, tact, and judgement; further, he must be a critic of
poetry and song, capable of discerning good music and rejecting bad. For
his body, I think I may take the Canon of Polyclitus as my model. He must
be perfectly proportioned: neither immoderately tall nor dwarfishly
short; not too fleshy (a most unpromising quality in one of his
profession) nor cadaverously thin. Let me quote you certain comments of
the people of Antioch, who have a happy knack in expressing their views
on such subjects. They are a most intelligent people, and devoted to
Pantomime; each individual is all eyes and ears for the performance; not
a word, not a gesture escapes them. Well, when a small man came on in the
character of Hector, they cried out with one voice: 'Here is Astyanax;
and where is Hector?' On another occasion, an exceedingly tall man was
taking the part of Capaneus scaling the walls of Thebes; 'Step over'
suggested the audience; 'you need no ladder.' The well-meant activity of
a fat and heavy dancer was met with earnest entreaties to 'spare the
platform'; while a thin performer was recommended to 'take care of his
health.' I mention these criticisms, not on account of their humorous
character, but as an illustration of the profound interest that whole
cities have sometimes taken in Pantomime, and of their ability to discern
its merits and demerits.
Another essential for the pantomime is ease of movement. His frame must
be at once supple and well-knit, to meet the opposite requirements of
agility and firmness. That he is no stranger to the science of the
boxing--and the wrestling-ring, that he has his share of the athletic
accomplishments of Hermes and Pollux and Heracles, you may convince
yourself by observing his renderings of those subjects. The eyes,
according to Herodotus, are more credible witnesses than the ears; though
the pantomime, by the way, appeals to both kinds of evidence.
Such is the potency of his art, that the amorous spectator is cured of
his infirmity by perceiving the evil effects of passion, and he who
enters the theatre under a load of sorrow departs from it with a serene
countenance, as though he had drunk of that draught of forgetfulness
That lulls all pain and wrath.
How natural is his treatment of his subjects, how intelligible to every
one of his audience, may be judged from the emotion of the house whenever
anything is represented that calls for sorrow or compassion. The Bacchic
form of Pantomime, which is particularly popular in Ionia and Pontus, in
spite of its being confined to satyric subjects has taken such possession
of those peoples, that, when the Pantomime season comes round in each
city, they leave all else and sit for whole days watching Titans and
Corybantes, Satyrs and neat-herds. Men of the highest rank and position
are not ashamed to take part in these performances: indeed, they pride
themselves more on their pantomimic skill than on birth and ancestry and
public services.
Now that we know what are the qualities that a good pantomime ought to
possess, let us next consider the faults to which he is liable.
Deficiencies of person I have already handled; and the following I think
is a fair statement of their mental imperfections. Pantomimes cannot all
be artists; there are plenty of ignorant performers, who bungle their
work terribly. Some cannot adapt themselves to their music; they are
literally 'out of tune'; rhythm says one thing, their feet another.
Others are free from this fault, but jumble up their chronology. I
remember the case of a man who was giving the birth of Zeus, and Cronus
eating his own children: seduced by the similarity of subject, he ran off
into the tale of Atreus and Thyestes. In another case, Semele was just
being struck by the lightning, when she was transformed into Creusa, who
was not even born at that time. Still, it seems to me that we have no
right to visit the sins of the artist upon the art: let us recognize him
for the blunderer that he is, and do justice to the accuracy and skill of
competent performers.
The fact is, the pantomime must be completely armed at every point. His
work must be one harmonious whole, perfect in balance and proportion,
self-consistent, proof against the most minute criticism; there must be
no flaws, everything must be of the best; brilliant conception, profound
learning, above all human sympathy. When every one of the spectators
identifies himself with the scene enacted, when each sees in the
pantomime as in a mirror the reflection of his own conduct and feelings,
then, and not till then, is his success complete. But let him reach that
point, and the enthusiasm of the spectators becomes uncontrollable, every
man pouring out his whole soul in admiration of the portraiture that
reveals him to himself. Such a spectacle is no less than a fulfilment of
the oracular injunction KNOW THYSELF; men depart from it with increased
knowledge; they have learnt something that is to be sought after,
something that should be eschewed.
But in Pantomime, as in rhetoric, there can be (to use a popular phrase)
too much of a good thing; a man may exceed the proper bounds of
imitation; what should be great may become monstrous, softness may be
exaggerated into effeminacy, and the courage of a man into the ferocity
of a beast. I remember seeing this exemplified in the case of an actor of
repute. In most respects a capable, nay, an admirable performer, some
strange fatality ran him a-ground upon this reef of over-enthusiasm. He
was acting the madness of Ajax, just after he has been worsted by
Odysseus; and so lost control of himself, that one might have been
excused for thinking his madness was something more than feigned. He tore
the clothes from the back of one of the iron-shod time-beaters, snatched
a flute from the player's hands, and brought it down in such trenchant
sort upon the head of Odysseus, who was standing by enjoying his triumph,
that, had not his cap held good, and borne the weight of the blow, poor
Odysseus must have fallen a victim to histrionic frenzy. The whole house
ran mad for company, leaping, yelling, tearing their clothes. For the
illiterate riffraff, who knew not good from bad, and had no idea of
decency, regarded it as a supreme piece of acting; and the more
intelligent part of the audience, realizing how things stood, concealed
their disgust, and instead of reproaching the actor's folly by silence,
smothered it under their plaudits; they saw only too clearly that it was
not Ajax but the pantomime who was mad. Nor was our spirited friend
content till he had distinguished himself yet further: descending from
the stage, he seated himself in the senatorial benches between two
consulars, who trembled lest he should take one of them for a ram and
apply the lash. The spectators were divided between wonder and amusement;
and some there were who suspected that his ultra-realism had culminated
in reality. However, it seems that when he came to his senses again he
bitterly repented of this exploit, and was quite ill from grief,
regarding his conduct as that of a veritable madman, as is clear from his
own words. For when his partisans begged him to repeat the performance,
he recommended another actor for the part of Ajax, saying that 'it was
enough for him to have been mad once.' His mortification was increased by
the success of his rival, who, though a similar part had been written for
him, played it with admirable judgement and discretion, and was
complimented on his observance of decorum, and of the proper bounds of
his art.
I hope, my dear Crato, that this cursory description of the Pantomime may
mitigate your wrath against its devoted admirer. If you can bring
yourself to bear me company to the theatre, you will be captivated; you
will run Pantomime-mad. I shall have no occasion to exclaim, with Circe,
Strange, that my drugs have wrought no change in thee!
The change will come; but will not involve an ass's head, nor a pig's
heart, but only an improved understanding. In your delight at the potion,
you will drain it off, and leave not a drop for any one else. Homer says,
of the golden wand of Hermes, that with it he
charms the eyes of men,
When so he will, and rouses them that sleep.
So it is with Pantomime. It charms the eyes-to wakefulness; and quickens
the mental faculties at every turn.
_Cr_. Enough, Lycinus: behold your convert! My eyes and ears are
opened. When next you go to the theatre, remember to take a seat for me
next your own. I too would issue from those doors a wiser man.
LEXIPHANES
_Lycinus. Lexiphanes. Sopolis_
_Ly_. What, our exquisite with his essay?
_Lex_. Ah, Lycinus, 'tis but a fledgeling of mine; 'tis all
incondite.
_Ly_. O ho, conduits--that is your subject, is it?
_Lex_. You mistake me; I said nothing of conduits; you are behind the
times; incondite--'tis the word we use now when a thing lacks the
finishing touches. But you are the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears.
_Ly_. I beg your pardon, my dear fellow; but conduit, incondite, you
know. Well now, what is the idea of your piece?
_Lex_. A symposium, a modest challenge to the son of Ariston.
_Ly_. There are a good many sons of Aristons; but, from the symposium, I
presume you mean Plato.
_Lex_. You take me; what I said could fit no other.
_Ly_. Well, come, read me a little of it; do not send me away thirsty; I
see there is nectar in store.
_Lex_. Ironist, avaunt! And now open your ears to my charming; adder me no
adders.
_Ly_. Go ahead; I am no Adam, nor Eve either.
_Lex_. Have an eye to my conduct of the discourse, whether it be fair in
commencement, fair in speech, fair in diction, fair in nomenclature.
_Ly_. Oh, we know what to expect from Lexiphanes. But come, begin.
_Lex_. _'Then to dinner,' quoth Callicles, 'then to our post-prandial
deambulation in the Lyceum; but now 'tis time for our parasolar unction,
ere we bask and bathe and take our nuncheon; go we our way. Now, boy,
strigil and mat, towels and soap; transport me them bathwards, and
see to the bath-penny; you will find it a-ground by the chest. And thou,
Lexiphanes, comest thou, or tarriest here?' 'Its a thousand years,'
quoth I, 'till I bathe; for I am in no comfort, with sore posteriors from
my mule-saddle. Trod the mule-man as on eggs, yet kept his beast a-moving.
And when I got to the farm, still no peace for the wicked. I found the
hinds shrilling the harvest-song, and there were persons burying my
father, I think it was. I just gave them a hand with the grave and things,
and then I left them; it was so cold, and I had prickly heat; one does,
you know, in a hard frost. So I went round the plough-lands; and there I
found garlic growing, delved radishes, culled chervil and all herbs,
bought parched barley, and (for not yet had the meadows reached the
redolency that tempts the ten toes)-so to mule-back again; whence this
tenderness behind. And now I walk with pain, and the sweat runs down; my
bones languish, and yearn for the longest of water-swims; 'tis ever my joy
to wash me after toil.
I will speed back to my boy; 'tis like he waits for me at the pease-
puddingry, or the curiosity shop; yet stay; his instructions were to meet
me at the frippery. Ah, hither comes he in the nick of time: ay, and has
purchased a beesting-pudding and girdle-cakes and leeks, sausages and
steak, dewlap and tripe and collops.--Good, Atticion, you have made most
of my journey no thoroughfare.' 'Why, sir, I have been looking round the
corner for you till I squint. Where dined you yesterday? with
Onomacritus?' 'God bless me, no. I was off to the country; hey presto!
and there we were. You know how I dote on the country. I suppose you all
thought I was making the glasses ring. Now go in, and spice all these
things, and scour the kneading-trough, ready to shred the lettuces. I
shall be of for a dry rub.'
'We are with you,' cried Philinus, 'Onomarchus, Hellanicus, and I; the
dial's mid point is in shadow; beware, or we shall bathe in the
Carimants' water, huddled and pushed by the vulgar herd.' Then said
Hellanicus: 'Ah, and my eyes are disordered; my pupils are turbid, I wink
and blink, the tears come unbidden, my eyes crave the ophthalmic leech's
healing drug, mortar-brayed and infused, that they may blush and blear no
more, nor moistly peer.'
In such wise conversing, all our company departed. Arrived at the
gymnasium, we stripped; the finger-wrench, the garotte, the standing-
grip, each had its votaries; one oiled and suppled his joints; another
punched the bladder; a third heaved and swung the dumb-bells. Then, when
we had rubbed ourselves, and ridden pick-a-back, and had our sport of the
gymnasium, we took our plunge, Philinus and I, in the warm basin, and
departed. But the rest dipped frigid heads, soused in, and swam
subaqueous, a wonder to behold. Then back we came, and one here, one
there, did this and that. Shod, with toothed comb I combed me. For I had
had a short crop, not to convict-measure, but saucer-wise, deflation
having set in on crown and chin-tip. One chewed lupines, another cleared
his fasting throat, a third took fish soup on radish-wafer sippets; this
ate olives, that supped down barley.
When it was dinner-time, we took it reclining, both chairs and couches
standing ready. A joint-stock meal it was, and the contributions many and
various. Pigs' pettitoes, ribs of beef, paunch and pregnant womb of sow,
fried liver lobe, garlic paste, sauce piquante, mayonnaise, and so on;
pastry, ramequins, and honey-cakes. In the aquatic line, much of the
cartilaginous, of the testaceous much; many a salt slice, basket-hawked,
eels of Copae, fowls of the barn-door, a cock past crowing-days, and fish
to keep him company; add to these a sheep roast whole, and ox's rump of
toothless eld. The loaves were firsts, no common stuff, and therewithal
remainders from the new moon; vegetables both radical and excrescent. For
the wine, 'twas of no standing, but came from the skin; its sweetness was
gone, but its roughness remained.
On the dolphin-foot table stood divers store of cups; the eye-shutter,
the ladle, slender-handled, genuine Mentor; crane-neck and gurgling
bombyl; and many an earth-born child of Thericlean furnace, the wide-
mouthed, the kindly-lipped; Phocaean, Cnidian work, but all light as air,
and thin as eggshell; bowls and pannikins and posied cups; oh, 'twas a
well-stocked sideboard.
But the kettle boiled over, and sent the ashes flying about our heads. It
was bumpers and no heeltaps, and we were full to the throat. Then to the
nard; and enter to us guitar and light fantastic toe. Thereafter, one
shinned up the ladder, on post-prandial japery intent, another beat the
devil's tattoo, a third writhed cachinnatory.
At this moment broke in upon us from the bath, all uninvited, Megalonymus
the attorney, Chaereas the goldsmith, striped back and all, and the
bruiser Eudemus. I asked them what they were about to come so late. Quoth
Chaereas; 'I was working a locket and ear-rings and bangles for my
daughter; that is why I come after the fair.' 'I was otherwise engaged,'
said Megalonymus; 'know you not that it was a lawless day and a dumb? So,
as it was linguistice, there was truce to my calendarial clockings and
plea-mensurations. But hearing the governor was giving a warm reception,
I took my shiniest clothes, fresh from the tailor, and my unmatched
shoes, and showed myself out.
'The first I met were a torch-bearer, a hierophant, and others of the
initiated, haling Dinias before the judge, and protesting that he had
called them by their names, though he well knew that, from the time of
their sanctification, they were nameless, and no more to be named but by
hallowed names; so then he appealed to me.' 'Dinias?' I put in; 'Who is
Dinias?' 'Oh, he's a dance-for-your-supper carry-your-luggage rattle-
your-patter gaming-house sort of man; eschews the barber, and takes care
of his poor chest and toes.' 'Well,' said I, 'paid he the penalty in some
wise, or showed a clean pair of heels?' 'Our delicate goer is now fast
bound. The governor, regardless of his retiring disposition, slipped him
on a pair of bracelets and a necklace, and brought him acquainted with
stocks and boot. The poor worm quaked for fear, and could not contain
himself, and offered money, if so he might save his soul alive.'
'As for me,' said Eudemus, 'I was sent for in the gloaming by Damasias,
the athlete many-victoried of yore, now pithless from age; you know him
in bronze in the market. He was busy with roast and boiled. He was this
day to exdomesticate his daughter, and was decking her out for her
husband, when a baleful incident occurred, which cleft the feast in
twain. For Dion his son, on grievance unknown, if it were not rather the
hostility of Heaven, hanged himself; and be sure he was a dead man, had I
not been there, and dislocated and loosed him from his implication. Long
time I squatted a-knee, pricking and rocking, and sounding him, to see
whether his throat was still whole. What profited most was compressure of
the extremities with both my hands.'
'What, Dion the effeminate, the libertine, the debauchee, the mastich-
chewer, the too susceptible to amorous sights?' 'Yes; the lecher and
whore-master. Well, Damasias fell down and worshipped the Goddess (they
have an Artemis by Scopas in the middle of the court), he and his old
white-headed wife, and implored her compassion. The Goddess straightway
nodded assent, and he was well; and now he is their Theodorus, or indeed
their manifest Artemidorus. So they made offerings to her, among them
darts and bows and arrows; for these are acceptable in her sight; bow-
woman she, far-dartress, telepolemic'
'Let us drink, then' said Megalonymus; 'here have I brought you a flagon
of antiquated wine, with cream cheese and windfall olives--I keep them
under seal, and the seals are worm-eaten--and others brine-steeped, and
these fictile cups, thin-edged, firm-based, that we might drink
therefrom, and a pasty of tripe rolled like a top-knot.--Now, you sir,
pour me in some more water; if my head begins to ache, I shall be sending
for your master to talk to you.--You know, gentlemen, what megrims I get,
and what a numskull mine is. After drinking, we will chirp a little as is
our wont; 'tis not amiss to prate in one's cups'
'So be it,' quoth I; 'we are the very pink and perfection of the true
Attic' 'Done with you!' says Callicles, 'frequent quizzings are a
whetstone of conversation' 'For my part,' cries Eudemus, '--it grows
chill--I like my liquor stronger, and more of it; I am deathly cold; if I
could get some warmth into me, I had rather listen to these light-
fingered gentry of flute and lyre.' 'What is this you say, Eudemus?' says
I; 'You would exact mutation from us? are we so hard-mouthed, so
untongued? For my tongue, 'tis garriturient. I was just getting under
way, and making ready to hail you with a fine old Attic shower. 'Tis as
if a three-master were sailing before the breeze, with stay-sails wind-
bellied, scudding along wave-skimming, and you should throw out two-
tongued anchorage and iron stoppers and ship-fetters, and block her
foaming course, in envy of her fair-windedness.' 'Why then, if you will,
splash and dash and crash through the waves; and I upsoaring, and
drinking the while, will watch like Homer's Zeus from some bald-crowned
hill or from Heaven-top, while you and your ship are swept along with the
wind behind you.'_
_Ly_. Thanks, Lexiphanes; enough of drink and reading. I assure you
I am full beyond my capacity as it is; if I do not succeed in quickly
unloading my stomach of what you have put into it, there is not a doubt I
shall go raving mad under the intoxication of your exuberant verbosity.
At first I was inclined to be amused; but there is such a lot of it, and
all just alike; I pity you now, poor misguided one, trapped in your
endless maze, sick unto death, a prey to melancholia.
Where in the world can you have raked up all this rubbish from? How long
has it taken you? Or what sort of a hive could ever keep together such a
swarm of lop-sided monstrosities? Of some you are the proud creator, the
rest you have dug up from dark lurking-places, till 'tis
Curse on you, piling woe on mortal woe!
How have you gathered all the minor sewers into one cloaca maxima, and
discharged the whole upon my innocent head! Have you never a friend or
relation or well-wisher? Did you never meet a plain-dealer to give you a
dose of candour? That would have cured you. You are dropsical, man; you
are like to burst with it; and you take it for muscular healthy
stoutness; you are congratulated only by the fools who do not see what is
the matter; the instructed cannot help being sorry for you.
But here in good time comes Sopolis; we will put you in the good doctor's
hands, tell him all about it, and see if anything can be done for you. He
is a clever man; he has taken many a helpless semi-lunatic like you in
hand and dosed him into sanity.--Good day, Sopolis. Lexiphanes here is a
friend of mine, you know. Now I want you to undertake his case; he
is afflicted with a delirious affection of the vocal organs, and I fear
a complete breakdown. Pray take measures to cure him.
_Lex_. Heal him, not me, Sopolis; he is manifestly moon-struck; persons
duly pia-matered he accounts beside their five wits; he might come from
Samos and call Mnesarchus father; for he enjoins silence and linguinanity.
But by the unabashed Athene, by Heracles the beast-killer, no jot or
tittle of notice shall he have from me. 'Tis my foreboding that I fall not
in with him again. For his censures, I void my rheum upon them.
_Sop_. What is the matter with him, Lycinus?
_Ly_. Why, _this_ is the matter; don't you hear? He leaves us his
contemporaries, and goes a thousand years off to talk to us, which he
does by aid of these tongue-gymnastics and extraordinary compounds--
prides himself upon it, too, as if it were a great thing to disguise
yourself, and mutilate the conversational currency.
_Sop_. Well, to be sure, this is a serious case; we must do all we
can for him. Providentially, here is an emetic I had just mixed for a
bilious patient; here, Lexiphanes, drink it off; the other man can wait;
let us purge you of this vocal derangement, and get you a clean bill of
health. Come along, down with it; you will feel much easier.
_Lex_. I know not what you would be at, you and Lycinus, with your
drenches; I fear me you are more like to end than mend my speech.
_Ly_. Drink, quick; it will make a man of you in thought and word.
_Lex_. Well, if I must. Lord, what is this? How it rumbles! I must have
swallowed a ventriloquist.
_Sop_. Now, let it come. Look, look! Here comes _in sooth, anon_ follows,
close upon them _quoth he, withal, sirrah, I trow,_ and a general
sprinkling of _sundry_. But try again; tickle your throat; that will help.
_Hard, by_ has not come up yet, nor _a-weary_, nor _rehearse_, nor
_quandary_. Oh, there are lots of them lurking yet, a whole stomachful. It
would be well to get rid of some of them by purging; there should be an
impressive explosion when _orotundity_ makes its windy exit. However, he
is pretty well cleaned out, except for what may be left in the lower
bowels. Lycinus, I shall now leave him in your charge; teach him better
ways, and tell him what are the right words to use.
_Ly_. I will, Sopolis; and thank you for clearing the way. Now,
Lexiphanes, listen to me. If you want sincere commendations upon your
style, and success with popular audiences, give a wide berth to that sort
of stuff. Make a beginning with the great poets, read them with some one
to help you, then go on to the orators, and when you have assimilated
their vocabulary, proceed in due time to Thucydides and Plato, not
forgetting a thorough course also of pleasant Comedy and grave Tragedy.
When you have culled the best that all these can show, you may reckon
that you have a style. You have not realized it, but at present you are
like the toymen's dolls, all gaudy colouring outside, and inside, fragile
clay.
If you will take this advice, put up for a little while with being called
uneducated, and not be ashamed to mend your ways, you may face an
audience without a tremor; you will not then be a laughing-stock any
more; the cultivated will no longer exercise their irony upon you and
nickname you the Hellene and the Attic just because you are less
intelligible than many barbarians. But above all things, do bear in mind
not to ape the worst tricks of the last generation's professors; you are
always nibbling at their wares; put your foot upon them once for all, and
take the ancients for your model. And no dallying with unsubstantial
flowers of speech; accustom yourself, like the athletes, to solid food.
And let your devotions be paid to the Graces and to Lucidity, whom you
have so neglected.
Further, put a stopper on bombast and grandiloquence and mannerism; be
neither supercilious nor overbearing; cease to carp at other people's
performances and to count their loss your gain. And then, perhaps the
greatest of all your errors is this: instead of arranging your matter
first, and then elaborating the diction, you find some out-of-the-way
word, or are captivated by one of your own invention, and try to build up
your meaning round it; if you cannot get it in somehow or other, though
it may have nothing to do with the matter, you are inconsolable; do you
remember the _mobled queen_ you let off the other day? It was quite
off the point, and you did not know what it meant yourself; however, its
oddness tickled the ears of the ignorant many; as for the cultivated,
they were equally amused at you and at your admirers.
Again, could anything be more ludicrous than for one who claims to be a
purist, drawing from the undefiled fountain of antiquity, to mix in
(though indeed that reverses the proportion) expressions that would be
impossible to the merest schoolboy? I felt as if I should like the earth
to swallow me up, when I heard you talk of a man's _chemise_, and use
_valet_ of a woman; who does not know that a man wears a shirt, and that a
valet is male? But you abound in far more flagrant blunders than these: I
have _chidden_, not _chode_ you; we do not _write_ a friend, we _write to_
him; we say _'onest_, not _honest_; these usages of yours cannot claim
even alien rights among us. Moreover, we do not like even poetry to read
like the dictionary. But the sort of poetry to which your prose
corresponds would be Dosiadas's _Altar_, Lycophron's _Alexandra_, or any
more pestilent pedantry that may happen to exist. If you take the pains to
unlearn all this, you will have done the best you can for yourself. If you
let yourself be seduced by your sweet baits again, I have at least put in
my word of warning, and you will have only yourself to blame when you find
yourself on the downward path.
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